Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has rejected the Left parties' call to join their stir
NEW DELHI: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has rejected the Left parties' call to join their stir on Thursday, the day Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to meet President George W Bush in Washington.
"We invited her for a joint stir on Sep 25. But she told us that her party MPs would be busy that day with some other engagements," a senior Left leader, who did not want to be named, said here on Tuesday.
Mayawati's refusal indicates she may not join the Left leaders' efforts to form a 'viable third alternative' to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before the general elections next year.
Mayawati's refusal to go along with the Left parties reportedly came after the Left parties, particularly Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), conveyed its unwillingness to contest the next general elections under her leadership.
The senior Left leader said there was a dispute within the Left parties on Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary AB Bardhan's "unilateral" announcement that 'the third alternative' would face elections under Mayawati's leadership.
"When comrade Bardhan unilaterally announced that the third front would face elections under the leadership of Mayawati, many of us were stunned," he said.
The Left parties discussed the matter and rejected Bardhan's announcement, he said.
The Left parties, Deve Gowda's Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the lone member of the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), would stage protest Sep 25.
They will protests the India-US nuclear deal and the Manmohan Singh government's foreign policy.
Moreover, the relations between the BSP and the Left parties are reportedly strained after Mayawati said she would not allocate a single seat to the Left parties in Uttar Pradesh in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
The CPI-M's Uttar Pradesh unit subsequently announced a strike against Mayawati's "misrule" in the state.
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