'Third front' launched in India

Mayawati (centre) was not at the launch but sent an envoy

India's communists and several other regional parties have come together to launch a "third front" in the country's politics.

The group is meant to be an alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - the two main players in the forthcoming elections.

General elections in India will be held in five phases over April and May.

Polling to elect a new Lok Sabha (lower house) will run from 16 April to 13 May. Counting is due on 16 May.

Nearly four million officials will conduct the elections and 714 million voters are eligible to cast ballots.

The incumbent Congress party-led coalition and parties led by the Hindu nationalist BJP are the main contenders for power.

'Failed'

The "third front" was launched at a massive rally in the town of Tumkur in the southern state of Karnataka.

Former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, the driving force behind the new group, called upon the people to vote for a "democratic and secular" government in the elections.

Speakers at the rally said both the Congress and the BJP-led alliances had failed to address people's grievances.

"This is a historic get-together of all democratic, secular and Left parties in the country to declare that we are all coming together to constitute a third force in this country," Prakash Karat, leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), was quoted as saying by private television channel Zee news.

"Today we have come together because the country needs a new alternative."

The launch was attended by senior leaders from Janata Dal (Secular) party, CPI(M), Communist Party of India (CPI), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Forward Bloc (FB), Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).

Ms J Jayalalitha (leader of Tamil Nadu state's opposition AIADMK party) and Ms Mayawati (the low-caste Dalit chief minister of northern Uttar Pradesh state and leader of Bahujan Samaj Party) were represented by their emissaries at the gathering.

Ms Mayawati has openly talked about her ambition to be prime minister.

Analysts say the big electoral battle will be between the Congress-led coalition which currently governs India, and the main opposition alliance led by BJP.

But in the last few years, the influence of smaller regional parties has been consistently growing.

Observers say the two main parties realise that going it alone will not get them far and frantic negotiations have been taking place for months as different political factions manoeuvre for position.