Newly-elected RPI president Ramdas Athawale told reporters here that his party would strive for an alliance with the Congress to defeat ``communal parties'' like the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party in the State.

He said an electoral understanding between secular parties like the Congress, RPI and Samajwadi Party could help in ousting the Sena-BJP alliance in the State.

Asked whether the Congress would be interested in an alliance with the RPI as the Pachmarhi Declaration of the Congress clearly said it would not forge an alliance with any party, Athawale said, ``I am optimistic that they would have an alliance with us as we have nearly 20 per cent of the voters and the Congress cannot do without us''.

``Congress president Sonia Gandhi and senior party leader Sharad Pawar are well aware ofthe importance of Dalit votes and hence should not have any problem in forging an alliance with us'', the RPI chief said.

Refusing an alliance with the RPI would only mean strengthening the Sena-BJP alliance, which the Congress would not want, he said.

Athawale said he would also appeal to Prakash Ambedkar, leader of a faction of the RPI, to support him and added that a large section of Ambedkar's supporters favoured an electoral understanding with the Congress.

The RPI convention also passed a resolution appealing to all factions of the party ``to sink their differences and come up under the party's flag as Dr B R Ambedkar had visualised a unified Republican force''.