No '(Narendra) Modi wave' in the country, says Brinda Karat

LUDHIANA: Communist Party of India (M) said that there is no "(Narendra) Modi wave" in the country and the Third Front should not be underestimated, claiming it had potential to form the government at the Centre on its own.

"There is no Modi wave," CPI(M) leader Bindra Karat told reporters after addressing a public meeting here.

Karat said regional parties of the country, which form the Third Front, had the potential to form the government on its own after the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The Third Front had been initially underplayed and underestimated by the media, she said.

Karat accused the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA for the unprecedented price rise and corruption in the country and said the policies pursued by both the parties were responsible for the crisis in the country.

"Congress and BJP are two sides of the same coin," she said.

Earlier, addressing a public meeting organised by the local unit of the CPI(M) on the martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, Karat exhorted the people to stand against corruption, price rise and communalism.

She lashed out at BJP, saying though it claimed of being a party with a difference, it was "ignoring and humiliating" its own stalwarts and admitting turncoats from other parties into its fold.

Mounting a scathing attack on Gujarat government, she said the claim of development model in the Narendra Modi-ruled state is limited only to big corporate houses at the cost of the poor, farmers and needy.

Later Karat, along with other leaders of the party, visited the ancestral house of Sukhdev here and paid tributes.