"Secular NDA partners can also join"

Jyoti Basu said he was ready to discuss alliance with "secular NDA partners" to prevent BJP from forming govt.

To prevent BJP from coming back to power, veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu said on Sunday that he was ready to discuss with "secular NDA partners" an alliance for government formation after the Lok Sabha polls.

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Though Basu said he was not in the race for premiership, he said, "I have not left the party, I have not left politics. I am in the politbureau, Central Committee. So as a Communist, as a Marxist till your last breath you work for the people."

"I am told that about eight to nine parties have gone out of the NDA. I don't want to name them. They are local parties. And if they are really secular, we will sit down, discuss and have a Common Minimum Programme like we have in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura," the former West Bengal Chief Minister told a private television channel.

Basu said the main issue was secularism. "But we will have to wait for the results."