3rd force against Congress, BJP won't work: CPI-M

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Monday favoured creating a "third alternative" to both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party but said the Samajwadi Party-Telugu Desam Party's "Third force" would not work in the current political scene.

"This third force (proposed by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chandrababu Naidu) is based upon numbers (in Parliament). It's a cut-and-paste proposal, which is not possible in the 14th Lok Sabha," CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters.

The Left leader, however, said he believed there did exist the need to set up a "third alternative" to the Congress and the BJP.

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"An alternative opposed to communalism but not based merely on numbers will work," he remarked.

Yechury, however, denied opposition charges that the Left was playing a second fiddle to the Congress, insisting communists alone have pushed several key programmes into the United Progressive Alliance's Common Minimum Programme.

"We extended support to the Congress after we had an agreement over the CMP.

The CMP contains many issues that could not have been there had we not pushed for them," he added.

In a counter-attack on the BJP, the Left leader said the main Opposition party too pursued many of the current economic policies of the ruling UPA when it was in power.