In its effort to keep BJP and Congress out of power in Delhi, Left parties on Wednesday announced their support to AAP.

New Delhi: In its effort to keep BJP and Congress out of power in Delhi, Left parties on Wednesday announced their support to AAP and asked their supporters to vote in favour Arvind Kejriwal-led party on those seats from where the joint front of the Left parties has not put up candidates in Assembly polls.

"15 seats are being contested jointly by Left parties in the Delhi polls. Rest of the 55 seats, our party has decided that it will ask our party members and voters to vote for the AAP. Most of the other left parties are also of the same view," CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat told reporters in New Delhi.

He said the line of the party was not to support Congress and BJP and especially the latter. He said his party has taken similar stands earlier as well and had even voted for BSP in Delhi in earlier elections.

The elections for the 70-member Delhi Assembly will be held on 7 February. The counting of votes will take place on 10 February and tomorrow is the last day of electioneering.

The CPI Delhi state council has also decided to extend support to AAP candidates in all those constituencies where the joint front of the left parties has not put up candidates.

"The decision in this regard is being taken after seeing the all-out offencive by the rabid communal forces led by BJP and spearheaded by divisive anti-national RSS to stoop down to unheard levels to somehow capture power.

"These pro-corporate Hindutva forces are using both money and muscle power along with slanderous campaigns and pernicious attempts even to amend nationally accepted Indian Constitution for scrapping secular, socialist contents," a CPI statement said.

The party said the Delhi voters are also wary of the anti-people neo-liberal policies that the UPA-II had imposed on them throwing their daily life out of gear.

"Hence to ensure that the there is no hung assembly again, the party has decided to support AAP nominees to avoid a division among the anti-BJP votes," it said.

The CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML) Liberation, SUCI(C), Forward Bloc, RSP and Socialist Party (India) have come to a seat-sharing arrangement and will be extending support to each other on 15 seats.

CPI appealed to Delhi voters to elect the Left candidates and urged its various branches, supporters, sympathisers and workers to ensure the defeat of BJP by fully supporting AAP candidates in those constituencies where CPI and other left candidates are not in the fray.

PTI