New Delhi
CPM chief Sitaram Yechury on Thursday said it is not feasible to maintain equidistance from the Congress in the context of opposition parties’ efforts to stitch up an alliance to defeat the BJP-led NDA in the 2019 General Election.

He, however, said: “A pre-poll national alliance of secular parties is not possible. It will be state specific, and is being worked out.” He added that dominant parties in the states would be nucleus of non-BJP alliances.

As an illustration, he said the SP and BSP would form the magnet in Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, the RJD headed by Lalu Yadav in Bihar and DMK in Tamil Nadu would be the counterforce. He underlined that the CPM wants TMC be dethroned in West Bengal.

To a poser, if Congress president Rahul Gandhi has credibility to lead an alternative alliance of the Opposition against the BJP-led NDA, Yechury said: “It’s not about personalities, but issues and policies.”

He said the Congress has a history of resorting to soft-Hindutva approach and compromising with communalism. The CPIM has always opposed it, and continue to do so, he added when referred to the grand old party’s stand on Sabarimala issue and poll promise to set up “gaushalas” in Madhya Pradesh.