By IANS
Hyderabad : A crucial meeting of five regional parties will be held here Wednesday to chalk out their strategy for the forthcoming elections to the key posts of India's president and vice-president.
Top leaders of Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Samajwadi Party, AIADMK, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) will meet and decide whether they should back the nominees of either the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or to abstain from voting.
The meeting hosted by TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu is also expected to deliberate on the prospects of forging a third front at the national level – an alternative to both the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA.
Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh, AIADMK chief J. Jayalalitha, INLD president Om Prakash Chautala and AGP's Brindavan Goswami are expected to attend the meet at Naidu's residence.
TDP sources said the issue of the presidential polls would dominate the proceedings. The five parties together command a voting strength of 98,004 in the electoral college of over 1.09 million for the presidential poll. Their share works out to 8.92 percent of the electoral college.
The parties, which form the opposition in their respective states, were keen to back the presidential candidate of the Left parties. The latter, however, reportedly decided to support the Congress-led UPA's candidate, leaving the regional parties in the lurch.
The parties would like to remain equidistant from both the UPA and NDA coalitions by not supporting their candidates. For a majority of them, Congress is the main rival in their respective states.
These parties are keen to work with the Left for a possible third front and hence would not like to antagonise them by siding with the BJP-led coalition. In Andhra Pradesh, Naidu has already joined hands with Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and hopes to have an understanding in the 2009 elections.
In such a situation, the five regional parties may decide to abstain from voting in the presidential polls, some sources say.
The meeting will also deliberate on the prospects of third front though the efforts in this regard received a setback with Samajwadi Party's defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. The leaders of four parties had come together on one platform during the Samajwadi Party's electoral campaign.