The Third Front, comprising 11 Left and secular parties, staking its claim as the “first front” met here on Tuesday to firm up the formation of a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative. Apart from the four Left parties, the others in the combination are JD(U), BJD, AIADMK, JD(S), Samajwadi Party, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) and Manpreet Singh Badal’s People’s Party of Punjab.
While leaders of all the four Left parties and the erstwhile Janata Parivar were present in full force at the crowded press conference, the AIADMK was represented by M Thambidurai. The BJD and AGP were conspicuously missing.
Issuing a joint statement after the meeting, the ‘Third Front’ leaders said five years of the UPA-II government have led to all-round problems and suffering for the people.
“The BJP and communal forces must be defeated and prevented from coming to power,” it said.
Positioning itself as an alternative to the Congress and the BJP, the ‘Third Front’ claimed it has a democratic, secular, federal and pro-people development agenda.
Asked about the front’s PM candidate, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said it will be decided later. Karat said that the emergence of such an alternative would become “the rallying point for all secular-democratic forces in the country who want to see an end to the Congress rule and who want to prevent a party with a communal ideology coming to power at the Centre.”