Third front? UPA may face new pressure group in final Parl session

New Delhi: With broad contours of a 'Third Force' emerging ahead of Lok Sabha polls, the Congress-led government will have to face a new pressure group from the Opposition minus BJP on key issues as Parliament's extended winter session re-convenes on 5 February.

Amid efforts by Left and other parties to form a non-Congress, non-BJP conglomeration, a meeting of Parliamentary party leaders from Left parties, SP, JDU, JDS, AIADMK, BJD, AGP and JVM (P) is scheduled in Parliament House Committee room on 5 February to work out a common floor strategy against the government.

The broad parameters for the strategy were decided in a meeting of CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury, SP leader Ramgopal Yadav and JD(U) general secretary K C Tyagi RPT K C Tyagi on 27 January in Delhi, sources said.

The issue of federal rights vis-a-vis Centre-States relation will provide the glue for these regional satraps to stick together, a senior politician associated with the exercise said.

When contacted, Tyagi said, "One factor which has clearly emerged after results of the assembly elections in four major states recently is that there is an anti-Congress mood in the country.

"If there is some non-Congress option other than BJP, people are ready to vote for it. This fact comes out from the result of Delhi Assembly elections in which a new party AAP formed government despite the presence of Congress and BJP. We are thinking on that."

The JD(U) leader also said that Congress has failed to check "communal forces" so the task has now come to regional parties.

"We will check BJP. Regional parties are very strong in their specific states," he said.

PTI