According to its website, the party was created as a "free-expression monthly magazine" named "Lalit de Klas" (English: "Class Struggle") in 1976.

The party, which started as a tendency inside the Mauritian Militant Movement, split from it in 1981, when the MMM announced that it was embarking on a policy of "New Social Consensus", seen by Lalit as a policy of collaboration with the capital.

[2] Lalit desires what it calls "an alternative political economy",[1] and works towards care for the environment, against repression and torture, and towards women's liberation.

Lalit strongly opposes communalism and the use of ethnoreligious labels for official purposes.

The party opposes the presence of Anglo-American forces on the atoll of Diego Garcia[1] which forms part of the Republic of Mauritius.