Bhubaneswar, April 8 (IANS) The Nationalist Congress Party alliance with the Left parties and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Orissa is ‘only Orissa-specific’, NCP chief Sharad Pawar said here Wednesday.
‘Our arrangement is only Orissa-specific,’ Pawar told a press conference, addressed jointly with Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik.
Pawar said the NCP remains with the Congress-led United Progresssive Alliance (UPA) at the national level.
‘We are not part of the Third Front,’ he clarified.
The NCP’s tie-up with the BJD as well as the Left in Orissa has upset the Congress.
Pawar kept all options open for an alliance with the Third Front in a post-poll scenario.
‘It is important that the secular forces come together (in Orissa). I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. We need secular parties to prevail,’ he said.
Yechury said the electoral alliance in Orissa could not be called a Third Front. ‘It is not a Third Front. We are making it Orissa-specific,’ he said.
Orissa Chief Minister Patnaik assure that the BJD would be with the ‘secular front’ after the elections. ‘Certainly, the BJD will be with the secular front,’ he said.
