Three Left parties — Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Forward Bloc — will jointly field 30 candidates in the May 5 Assembly elections.
They will be releasing their combined manifesto shortly and have announced names of 27 candidates.
Tie-up
Releasing the list, leaders of the CPI(M), the CPI and Forward Bloc, V.J.K. Nair, P.V. Lokesh and G.R. Shivashankar respectively, said that they had reached an understanding with Loksatta and Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha, which would contest in another 17 constituencies.
The CPI(M) is fielding the party’s State secretary G.V. Srirama Reddy from Bagepalli and R. Chandra Tejaswi, party’s district secretary, from Doddaballapur. Sati Sundaresh, assistant secretary of the State CPI unit, is contesting from Mudigere.
Forward Bloc, which has already announced candidates for Aland, Chittapur and Sedam, has not finalised candidates for three Bangalore constituencies: Chickpet, Shantinagar and Gandhinagar.
Mr. Nair said that they would explore the possibility of evolving a non-Congress and non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alternative in the State.
However, he clarified that, since Janata Dal (Secular) had declared that it would go alone, the Left parties would have no truck with that party.
Noting that the recent election to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) indicated that no party would get simple majority, he predicted a repeat of 1983 political scenario, where Left parties had won five seats and supported Janata Party government headed by Ramakrishna Hegde.
“We are fighting this election for preventing BJP with all its manifestations like Karnataka Janata Paksha and Badavara Shramikara Raithara (BSR) Congress from forming a government,” said P.V. Lokesh, State CPI secretary.
