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Gowda: don’t write off Third Front

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) president, H.D. Deve Gowda, on Tuesday asserted that the non-Congress, non-Bharatiya Janata Party Third Front cannot not be wished away, merely because the Telangana Rashtra Samiti has moved over to the National Democratic Alliance.

“Regional compulsions and the commitment for the realisation of a separate State may have prompted an ally [TRS] to join another alliance. But, that in no way indicates a division within the ranks of all those who committed themselves to a secular, pro-poor, pro-farmer, pro-worker and pro-people alternative to the Congress and the BJP at the Dobbespet rally [in Karnataka] on March 12.”

“Response to disillusionment”

The Third Front, he said, was a response to the common people’s disillusionment with the two principal parties, which miserably failed to live up to their aspirations.

“Those who like to portray the Third Front as a motley crowd of prime ministerial aspirants and self-seeking regional parties are trying to wish away the sentiments of poor masses of India, who find themselves excluded from the socio-economic processes pursued by the UPA and the NDA, which have added millions to the below the poverty line category, while pushing a chosen few to the pinnacle of wealth.”

“Sign of desperation”

Reiterating the resolve of the Third Front to form a government that would provide an alternative, inclusive economic development and governance model, he said the attempts to write off the Third Front betrayed the desperation of those who wished to propagate the concept of bipolar polity. Mr. Gowda said: “I am amused at the tendency to write the obituary of the Third Front even before the last phase of the Lok Sabha election is over. This betrays the desperate anxiety of the ones, who wish to spread the false gospel of bipolar polity in India”.

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