Click to play videoNew Delhi: Just a day before India polls in Phase V on Wednesday, the Third Front is showing clear signs of disintegrating.
After Telangana Rashtriya Samiti attended BJP’s mega rally in Ludhiana on Sunday, the Janata Dal (Secular) is the latest to move away from the Third Front - a conglomerate of parties that claimed they will install a non-Congress, non-BJP government, "secular" government.
On Wednesday night, former Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy met Congress President Sonia Gandhi at her residence, 10 Janpath, sparking speculation of a possible post-poll alliance between the two parties.
"The report is true," a Congress leader who did not want to be named told news persons after TV channels aired the visuals of the former Karnataka chief minister's car entering Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence late evening.
Kumaraswamy, who probably was not expecting the media presence there, apparently covered his face when cameras focused on him.
Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the party was these days holding "informal meetings" with other "secular parties" to form post-poll alliances.
This meeting comes amid rumours of a tacit understanding between the JD(S) and the Congress in Karnataka.
It was JD(S), led by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, that initiated efforts to form the Third Front by organising a rally at Tumkur, near Bangalore in March.
Shortly before this meeting came to public notice, Gowda gave a statement saying that his party was a part of the Third Front and he was “amused at the tendency to write the obituary of the Third Alternative even before the last phase of the Lok Sabha election was over”.
Kumaraswamy will address a press conference at 2200 hrs IST on Tuesday.
The JD-S-Congress meeting is viewed as a jolt to the Left parties, which are trying to form an anti-Congress, anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
Two days ago, one of the key Third Front party, Telangana Rashtra Samiti led by K Chandrasekhar Rao, attended a rally organised by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Ludhiana.
Gowda downplayed the significance of the meeting insisting the Third Front was "intact" and that it was too early to write the "obituary" of his grouping.
(With inputs from IANS)
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