Political parties other than the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will do well in the 2014 general elections, as they have substantial support among voters, Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said here on Monday.
Those who thought that the Congress and the BJP were the only two forces and alternatives to one another were wrong, as the two parties could not secure even 50 per cent of the votes in the last two general elections.
After the 2014 elections, there was the possibility of the “non-Congress, non-BJP” parties stitching together an alternative combination, though there may be a few pre-poll alliances at the regional level.
In these circumstances, the CPI (M) would put forward alternative economic and political policies and work with all those parties to strengthen their electoral prospects.
Mr. Karat was addressing a meeting got up as part of the celebrations to mark the centenary of former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.
The voters would reject the corrupt Congress and communal BJP and vote for secular democratic forces, some of which were successfully running governments in various States.
And when the parties form the next government at the Centre, the Left would push for policies that were followed by Jyoti Basu during his continuous rule for seven terms in West Bengal.
Jyoti Basu was a clean politician who provided a corruption-free administration to the people of West Bengal, said State general secretary of the party G. Ramakrishnan. In a resolution passed at a meeting earlier, the CPI (M) urged the Centre to stop proceeding with the recommendations of the K. Kasturirangan Committee on protecting the Western Ghats.
