Time ripe for floating third alternative: Gowda

Holding that projecting Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi as PM candidates by Congress and BJP respectively was not going to ensure them majority in Parliament, JD(S) leader H D Deve Gowda today said the time was ripe for floating a third alternative by regional parties.
"This is the right time to form the so-called third alternative against Congress and BJP. For such a formation, the Prime Ministerial candidate is not an important issue as its thrust is on policies and programmes," Gowda told a press meet here.
While noting that results of the recent Delhi assembly elections were remarkable, Gowda said it was for Aam Aadmi Party to decide whether it would be part of the third alternative.

He said neither Congress nor BJP was going to cross the halfway mark in Parliament by projecting Gandhi and Modi as their Prime Ministerial candidates.
"As far as the third alternative is concerned, the issue of Prime Ministerial candidate is immaterial. There are leaders like Mulayam Singh and Nitish Kumar who are aspirants for the that post.
"In Tamil Nadu, AIADMK the other day adopted a resolution expressing the aspiration that its leader Jayalalithaa should become the Prime Minister,"the Janata Dal-Secular leader said.

What was to be done immediately by the regional parties was to sit together and work out a set of alternative policies and programmes, he said.

On a question on the role of Left parties in that process, he said the Left had always stood for such a programme-based formation.
Gowda, who headed the coalition government in 1996 at the Centre, said he was not aspiring to become Prime Minister again.