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Karat, Naidu discuss way forward for Third Front

HYDERABAD: Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat on Monday said he was hopeful of non-Congress and non-BJP parties forming the next government in Delhi.

Mr. Karat, who flew down to Hyderabad for a luncheon meeting with Telugu Desam party president N. Chandrababu Naidu, said they had preliminary discussions on how to go forward after the elections. He left for Delhi after the meeting.

Mr. Karat told journalists that they discussed the post-election situation and ways of strengthening the grouping of non-Congress and non-BJP parties having a common approach.

As of now they were in touch with nine or 10 parties, including the AIADMK, the BJD and the Janata Dal (Secular), and already an electoral understanding was in place with some of these, he said.

Asked to comment on BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu’s comparison of the Third Front to a parking lot, he asserted that the BJP would not be anywhere in the picture after the elections.

On AICC president Sonia Gandhi’s criticism of the Left Front government in West Bengal, he said the local leaders there would respond to it.

Later, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu said it was only an informal meeting held in accordance with a decision taken much before the two-phase elections in Andhra Pradesh. The present and post-poll political situations were reviewed.

Asked if they would rope in “fourth front” partners — the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Jan Shakti Party — Mr. Naidu said there was need for clarity, as they were still unsure of their stand vis-À-vis the Congress. They seemed to have their own political compulsions in supporting the Congress.

Mr. Naidu refused to comment on the Left parties’ stand that they would not mind taking outside support from the Congress for the formation of a Third Front government. “We will discuss such things after the elections.”

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