Manik Sarkar in CPIM reception.

Accusing the United Progressive Alliance government of failing to check rise in prices of essential goods and pursuing anti-people policies, the Communist Party of India-Marxist on Thursday said there was an imperative need for a third alternative, which would be debated at the party's coming Congress in Coimbatore later this week.

It is now an imperative need to find a third alternative at the Center after the failure of the Congress-led UPA alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led combine's potential of being a threat to the country's secular fabric, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said.

The issue would be vigorously debated at the CPI-M Congress beginning in Coimbatore on March 29, Bhattacharya, a party politbureau member, told a Left Front rally in Kolkata.

His views were echoed by his colleague in the CPI(M) Polit Bureau and counterpart in Tripura, Manik Sarkar, who said that the entire country was looking forward to an alternative path in politics.