Ruling Congress slams left ally's "third front"

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The ruling Congress party warned a decision by its communist coalition ally to seek a new political grouping ahead of a likely general election next year could open the way to victory for opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

India's largest communist party, which shores up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition, said at the weekend it would seek a "third alternative" to challenge India's two mainstream national parties, Congress and the BJP.

"Whenever secular forces were divided in the past, it helped the fundamentalist forces to occupy the political centre stage," Congress party spokesman Jayanthi Natarajan was quoted as saying in the Times of India.

A BJP victory could swing India to a more pro-market and pro-U.S. agenda after years of stagnation in economic reforms and problems over improving relations with Washington, partly due to the government's need to mollify leftist allies.

Relations between Congress and its leftist allies have been strained in the last year over Singh's attempt to seal a controversial nuclear deal with the United States. The spat nearly broke up the ruling coalition late in 2007.

The India-U.S. civil nuclear cooperation agreement aims to allow New Delhi to access American nuclear fuel and reactors by overturning a three-decade ban imposed after India conducted a nuclear test while staying out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

On Sunday, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said in a draft political resolution that "there has to be a alternative to the Congress and the BJP-led combinations ... For this it is necessary to form a third alternative".

The ruling Congress has struggled electorally in the last year.

In Gujarat election in December, the BJP registered a strong victory over Congress. That vote was seen by some as a barometer of the fortunes of India's two main parties.