Left parties have decided to contest the Bihar polls as a separate front, deploying themselves as one more anti-BJP formation besides the Janata Parivar-Congress combine.
It is also open to supporting Janata candidates in areas where it is not fielding its own.
The Left’s response to the JD(U)-RJD alliance was lukewarm, with CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury reiterating that the Left had decided to contest the Bihar polls together before the Lalu-Nitish alliance came about.
Yechury was also non-committal about participating in talks to form a unified anti-BJP coalition.
The decision follows the view within the CPI(M)-led front that the Left has to carve out a separate identity for itself in order to expand beyond its traditional bastions of West Bengal and Kerala and arrest the slide in its popularity in its strongholds other than Tripura.
The recent party congresses of India’s two largest Left parties –the CPI and the CPI(M)— also resolved to change the line of thinking by forging a broader Left unity.
Published 09 June 2015, 18:16 IST