Left's main task is to ensure BJP's defeat in 2019 polls: Sitaram Yechury

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the focus of his party would be to defeat the BJP and install an alternate secular government at the Centre after the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for next year.

"The main task before the Left and democratic forces in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections is to defeat the BJP and its allies and to ensure that an alternative secular government is formed at the centre", he said.

Yechury was briefing reporters at the end of the three-day meet of the party's central committee.

He accused the Modi government of "viciously intensifying attacks on people's livelihood" due to price rise, particularly of petroleum products, growing unemployment and deepening agrarian distress under its rule.

It has drastically affected the living conditions of the vast majority of the people, he said.

"Communal polarisation is spreading an atmosphere of hatred, violence and terror in which many innocent lives have been lost, particularly Dalits and Muslims," he alleged.

Terming Modi government's acts as "authoritarian", Yechury alleged it had undermined people's democratic rights, parliamentary institutions and constitutional authorities.

The government has reduced India to the status of a junior strategic ally of the US, which undermines sovereignty of the country, he charged.

Yechury said CPI(M) will contest some seats in the forthcoming assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh,with an aim to strengthen its assembly representation and will campaign for the defeat of the BJP in the rest of the seats.

In Telangana, the CPI(M) will work for the defeat of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the BJP, he said.