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Kolkata: Terming West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's call for a Federal Front as a "ploy" to increase her bargaining power with Congress and BJP before the 2014 polls, the Left parties feel it cannot be successful without a common minimum programme.
"It is nothing but a ploy by Banerjee to increase her bargaining power with the BJP and Congress before the 2014 elections. Everybody knows her political track record," CPI(M) politburo member and Leader of the Opposition Surya Kanta Mishra told PTI here.
"Such an alliance can never be successful. She doesn't believe in multi-party views as she has always been unitary in approach," Mishra said.
CPI leader A B Bardhan echoed Mishra, saying "just a few chief ministers coming together for gaining power at the Centre won't be a viable option."
"Without a common programme such a front can't be viable.
Earlier we had talked of third front on the basis of a common agenda with like-minded secular parties," he said.
He was referring to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik with whom Banerjee has spoken about the Federal Front which she had mooted a few days ago in a Facebook post.
It comes at a time when the Congress-led UPA is facing allegations of corruption and the BJP facing the prospect of JD(U) walking away from the NDA over the elevation of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the saffron party's election campaign committee chief.
