A day after re-assuring the ruling Congress of Samajwadi Partys (SP) outside support to the UPA,SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday had a 35-minute-long meeting with Akali Dal president Sukhbir Badal,a key constituent of the NDA,here. Though Mulayam asserted after the meeting that any potential non-Congress,non-BJP front will take shape only after the next Lok Sabha elections,sources present at the meeting told The Sunday Express that the SP chief dropped enough hints about his plan for the same. Sources within the SP confide that Mulayams meeting was part of his grand strategy to keep a communication channel open with all parties apart from the two. The SP chief has openly asserted that the third front could be a possibility after the next Lok Sabha elections. The meeting,incidentally,was fixed by Akali Dal leader B S Ramoowalia,who had been a key aide of the late CPM general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet. It was at Surjeets request that Mulayam had helped Ramoowalia get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh. Later Ramoowalia had been inducted as a minister in the United Front government. At the meeting attended by Sukhbir,his MP-wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Ramoowalia,the SP chief was learnt to have talked about the common agenda of the two parties to oppose the anti-farmer and anti-trader policies of the Congress-led UPA government. Mulayam was also learnt to have suggested that Sukhbirs father and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal,whom he called one of the tallest leaders in the country,shift his focus to national politics. However,Sukhbir apparently didnt indicate if the suggestion was favourable. Incidentally,Badal Sr,who heads an Akali Dal-BJP government in Punjab,had attended the swearing-in of Mulayams son Akhilesh Yadav as the UP CM early this year. Ramoowalia later told The Sunday Express that Mulayam wanted the Akali Dals support in opposing the UPA governments decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail. In another indication of his doors being open for leaders across the spectrum,Mulayam did not rule out opposing FDI in retail in the next Parliament session even if it was the Trinamool Congress that forced a discussion on the matter. Earlier,he had joined the Left in its Bharat bandh rally against the FDI decision and the diesel price hike.
