By IANS,
New Delhi: The Third Front led by the Left parties could be in for yet another jolt as one of its major leaders, H.D. Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), Tuesday held an “informal meeting” with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at her residence here.
“The report is true,” a Congress leader who did not want to be named told IANS 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.
“We welcome all the secular parties,” Singhvi told a TV channel while refusing to confirm Kumaraswamy’s meeting with Gandhi.
JD-S spokesman Danish Ali did not respond to queries.
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.
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 (TRS) led by K. Chandrasekhar Rao, attended a rally organised by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Ludhiana.