The short-sightedness of the Congress had scuttled the chances of a broad secular democratic front at the national level and the Left will align with the Congress for a post-election alliance to keep Narendra Modi from coming to power, Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy has said.
Participating in a meet-the-press programme of the Kesari Memorial Journalists’ Trust here on Thursday, Mr. Reddy said the Left parties wanted a broad secular front at the national level to end the five years of autocratic rule by Mr. Modi without accountability to Parliament or nation and to put the country back to protect democracy, Constitution and secularism.
The Congress has failed miserably in forming a broad alliance and narrow partisan group interests at the local level prevented it from forging the alliance even with non-Left secular parties. “We have serious political differences with the Congress on secularism and economic policies. Congress preach secularism and but when coming to fight communalism, they are seen to be soft. As for economic policies, the BJP itself had said it was following policies initiated by the Congress after 1990,” he said.
The Congress can be part of the non-BJP alliance. “But we are not sure whether it can be accepted as the leader of the alternative. All parties opposed to the BJP will have to arrive at a consensus on the leader.” A post-poll alliance against the BJP is difficult, but it can be managed.