No 'truck' with Nitish Kumar-led secular alliance for Bihar polls: CPI

PATNA: The six-party Left alliance would have no 'truck' with the Nitish Kumar-led secular alliance in the forthcoming Bihar Assembly poll and would release a common manifesto on September seven, the CPI today said.

"Our alliance of six Left parties will have no truck with Kumar-led secular alliance of which the RJD, Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party are partners for the elections. We will contest the polls separately and release our common manifesto on September 7," CPI deputy general secretary Gurudas Dasgupta said.

Dasgupta, who along with his party's national secretary Amrendra Kumar, jointly addressed media persons here in the state capital, said that the Left leaders would sit together and discuss distribution of seats in the 243-member Bihar Assembly from August 7.

Both the leaders were here to attend the two-day state council meet of their party, which ended today. Apart from CPI, the Left alliance includes CPI(M), CPI (ML), Socialist Unity Centre of India, Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP).

"We all have decided to directly fight the BJP-led NDA and Nitish Kumar-led alliance. The poor people of Bihar have suffered much over the last several decades and will support us in the polls," Dasgupta added.

CPI leader Amarendra Kumar said the two-day state council meeting discussed the recently concluded Legislative Council polls on 24 seats and the Assembly elections scheduled in October-November later this year.

Kumar said Left trade unions would observe a day-long nationwide strike on September 2 against the Centre's move to amend land acquisition law and other "anti-labour policies".