New Delhi, June 22 (Inditop) Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Prakash Karat Monday admitted that the Left-led Third Front “failed to be a viable and credible alternative” in the Lok Sabha polls as the grouping lacked a country-wide reach.
“In the absence of a country-wide alliance and no policy platform being presented, the call for an alternative government was unrealistic,” Karat accepted at a press confernce here after the party’s two-day central committee meeting that concluded Sunday.
He, however, maintained that the attempt to rustle up a non-Congress, non-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government “was a correct tactic”.
“This effort resulted in the electoral understanding forged by some regional and Left parties in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Karnataka. However, such an electoral understanding could not be extended beyond these four states and the three Left-led states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.”
He said this was why it “failed to be a viable and credible alternative”.
Karat maintained that the decision of the Left parties to pull out support to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in July last year was “correct”.
“This was consistent with the Left stance against forging of strategic alliance with the United States.”
