CPI-M confident that more regional parties would come together

CPI(M) has exuded confidence that more regional parties would join the non-Congress, anti-BJP combination of 11 Left and secular parties ahead of general elections, as its leadership meets here this weekend to discuss the emerging political scenario.
A meeting of the party's Central Committee from Saturday comes days after top leaders of nine of these parties met here to announce their coming together for the upcoming general elections.
The crucial meeting would also discuss the broad contours of the CPI(M)'s manifesto for the elections, sources said.
Senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said these nine parties together represented states having a total of 265 Lok Sabha MPs. The parties are AIADMK, SP, JD(U), JD(S), Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, CPI(M), CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc.

Taking into fold the BJD and Asom Gana Parishad which are participating in the process but whose leaders did not attend the meet, the number of MPs would go up to 300, Yechury said.
Apart from these 11 parties, People's Party of Punjab, Prakash Ambedkar's Republican Party in Maharashtra and "many other regional parties are expressing their intention to join such a coming together of secular opposition parties in the interests of building a better India," he said in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of CPI(M) organ 'People's Democracy'.
These parties are either ruling or are the main opposition from various major states that send an overwhelming majority of MPs to the Lok Sabha, he said.

Referring to the Joint Declaration issued by the 11 parties after their meeting, Yechury said, "The people's yearning for relief can only be met by an alternative policy trajectory. As far as the economic policy direction and corruption are concerned, people see little difference between the BJP and the Congress.