Left inspires third front to oust BJP
George Iypein New Delhi
The break-up of the United Front and the prospect of a Congress-led coalition coming to power at the Centre after November's state assembly election is giving shape to a third
front, a brand new alliance of secular and regional parties.
Led by the Left parties, the key players of the proposed front are now planning to rope in some Bharatiya Janata Party allies like the Biju Janata Dal and the Lok Shakti into the new political formation.
"The front will take concrete shape soon after the state assembly election and our agenda is to offer an anti-BJP platform to all secular parties in the country," Communist
Party of India-Marxist general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet told Rediff On The NeT.
Surjeet, who originally mooted the idea of the front's formation, concedes that "the United Front is practically dead after the BJP government came to power six months ago."
"We now want to bring together the erstwhile regional partners of the UF under one head so that it can be a mighty secular combination to take on the BJP at the Centre," the CPI-M leader said.
He said the BJP's partners like the Biju Janata Dal and the Lok Shakti are welcome to join "our third front because we feel they are still secular
parties who have been forced to take part in the BJP government."
According to Surjeet, who is now directly liaising with Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the formation of an alternative government at the Centre, the important partners in the front could include the Telugu Desam Party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazgham, the Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party.
Left sources disclosed that the first formal meeting of the proposed front will take place in New Delhi in the second week of October. The Left parties, the DMK, the JD and the SP are expected to take part in the meeting.
Soon after the parliamentary election six months ago, the UF partners had an anti-BJP, anti-Congress stance. But sensing that the Vajpayee government is pulling ahead by
surviving crisis after crisis, the Left parties now want to set up the third front primarily with the aim of supporting a Congress-led coalition in future.
However, what is troubling the Left leaders is whether to include Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal in the front.
The Left parties and other key regional players like the DMK and the JD are not in favour of including the RJD in the front as they fear that the corruption charges against Laloo Yadav would sully the new political formation's image.
But SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has joined hands with Laloo Yadav in forming the Rashtriya Loktantric Morcha, does not want to exclude Laloo from the
front.
"Our support to the RJD was against the imposition of President's rule in Bihar. We are not ready to go along with RJD beyond Bihar," Communist Party of India general secretary A B Bardhan told Rediff On The NeT.
The Congress and the Left parties had vehemently supported Laloo Yadav's campaign against the BJP government's move to sack the Rabri Devi government. But after the BJP government dropped the plan to axe the Bihar government, Opposition parties cold-shouldered Laloo Yadav's efforts to form an anti-BJP front to topple the Vajpayee government.
Congress and Left leaders feel that though the Bihar episode united the Opposition, their support to Laloo Yadav was on a specific issue.
"We cannot associate with the RJD at this juncture. Therefore, we will continue to demarcate our position vis-à-vis Laloo Yadav's record of misdeeds in Bihar," a senior Left
leader said.
While TDP parliamentary leader K Yerrannaidu refused to comment on the Left move to cobble together a new political front, Congress Lok Sabha chief whip P J Kurien said his party is "not interested in being part of any third front."
"Our focus of political attention now is not in toppling the BJP government, but on the state assembly election," Kurien told Rediff On The NeT, adding that "any concrete
plans to give or take support from the so-called third front will emerge only after the poll."
Many believe the Congress, with the active support of the third front, will attempt to pull down the Vajpayee government and bid for power at the Centre if the party routs the BJP in two of the four states -- Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Rajasthan -- which go to the polls in November.
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