Decision on any alternative front only before 2019 polls: DMK tells Mamata Banerjee

CHENNAI: DMK today said it has informed TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that any decision on a possible alternative front will be taken only around the parliamentary polls scheduled next year.

Referring to Mamata's recent telephonic conversation with him, DMK Working President M K Stalin told reporters here that he had told her that Lok Sabha elections were a year away.

Banerjee had called him up in a bid to co-ordinate in and outside the Parliament against BJP, seen as a precursor to her efforts to stitch a non-BJP coalition for the 2019 polls.

Any decision in this regard will be taken by a DMK high level committee meeting, Stalin said, adding, the same had been conveyed to her.

"DMK is part of the (Congress-led) UPA. Under these circumstances she (Banerjee) has placed a request. Since elections are a year away, we will discuss the matter in the high level committee meeting," he said when asked if there was a need for forming a 'third front.

Amid a fresh unity bid by the Opposition to take on the BJP, Banerjee had reached out to Stalin for co-ordination in and outside Parliament.

Banerjee is pitching for regional parties to come together to take on the BJP after the results of assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

She had earlier spoken to TRS leader and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on the subject.