The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Saturday rejected a call by smaller parties to form a third front in Chhattisgarh. "This is an immature idea to put effort for formation of a third front in Chhattisgarh. The CPI-M thinks putting any effort for a third front to give people in Chhattisgarh an option to the (ruling) BJP and Congress will be a sheer waste of time," Jogendra Sharma, the party's central secretariat member, told reporters here.

Sharma asked CPI-M workers to raise issues of the common  people and expose the state government's alleged misrule to help the party to perform better in the assembly polls to be held in the mineral-rich state late next year.

The CPI-M has been struggling for years in Chhattisgarh to make its presence felt and the party does not have a single member in the 90-member state assembly.