Signalling possible fresh political alignments, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar whose party is a key constituent of Congress-led UPA, will attend a Third Front rally in Bhubaneshwar on Friday.
NCP general secretary Tariq Anwar said since NCP has a seat-sharing agreement with Orissa’s ruling BJD,
Pawar will go to Bhubaneshwar on Friday to share the dais with Third Front at the latter’s rally.
This will be the first time that Pawar will be sharing the dais with Third Front which was launched in Tumkur, Karnataka, last month as a non-Congress and non-BJP alternative.
The announcement by Anwar came a day after NCP caused a flutter in UPA when the party refused to accept Manmohan Singh as the prime ministerial candidate of the ruling alliance.
Reacting to Pawar’s decision to attend the Third Front rally in Bhubaneshwar, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told NDTV that it was for the NCP chief to “introspect and to decide what kind of message they want to send by sharing dais in Orissa with those who do not have secular record (apparent reference to BJD) or those who have broken the secular forces” (veiled allusion to Left parties).