Karnataka template can be implemented in other states: Pawar after CPI's D Raja meets him in Mumbai

He said that like-minded parties will have to work on a common minimum programme

Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D Raja on Sunday met NCP president Sharad Pawar at his residence in Mumbai and discussed providing an alternative to BJP, a meeting coming a day after the saffron party's drubbing in Karnataka elections.

Addressing reporters after the meeting, Pawar indicated that the Karnataka template needs to be implemented in other states, and for that, like-minded parties will have to work on a common minimum programme (CMP).

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“The Karnataka assembly elections have given a message. We need to work on creating a situation like Karnataka in other states. The Congress alone gave an alternative to the BJP in Karnataka, but in other states, like-minded parties will have to work on a common minimum programme (CMP),” the NCP chief said. We will work on both fronts (of creating a strategy like Karnataka and the CMP) and we are starting this process, he added.

Raja spoke about a common understanding to defeat the BJP.

"The state-level strategy can be worked out. We may find some time to interact in Delhi now. The BJP can be defeated and it will lose the 2024 parliamentary as well as state (Maharashtra) elections. The myth of the party being invincible has been broken,” he said referring to the Karnataka poll outcome.

In Karnataka, the Congress won 135 seats out of 224, while the ruling BJP and the former prime minister H D Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular) secured 66 and 19 seats, respectively.