Mamata's call for 'third front' gets lukewarm response from DMK

Banerjee is pitching for regional parties to come together to take on the BJP after the results of assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

After West Bengal Chief Minister reached out to the DMK in a bid to form a 'third front' to take on the BJP, MK Stalin on Tuesday said that currently his party is part of the UPA and any decision regarding the third front would be taken before 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He said that the DMK would take a decision on Banerjee's proposal at a high-level committee meeting.

"DMK is part of the (Congress-led) UPA. Under these circumstances she (Banerjee) has placed a request. Since elections are a year away, we will discuss the matter in the high level committee meeting," Stalin, DMK's working president, said.

Banerjee is pitching for regional parties to come together to take on the BJP after the results of assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland. She had earlier spoken to TRS leader and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on the subject.

Amid ever-growing political clout of the BJP, parties like the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and others are working towards a plan to come up with a national front minus the Congress to challenge the might of the saffron party in the all-important 2019 General elections.

Recently, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao came up with the idea of a national political formation without the BJP and the Congress. He immediately got support from his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee and a few others, including Hyderabad lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi.

Mamata on Monday said the TMC's target was Delhi and the Red Fort and asserted that the BJP will never succeed in its efforts to win West Bengal. After Tripura's massive victory, the BJP's top leaders, including its chief Amit Shah, stated that now they are set to win power in West Bengal, Odisha, Karnataka and Kerala.

OneIndia News with PTI inputs