Secular parties will come out of NDA — Deve Gowda

He said a third front would emerge as a result of the difficult situation faced by the country. “There is a decline in the performance of the national parties and no single party is strong enough to form a Government of its own at the Centre”.

To substantiate his claim, the former PM referred to the reverses faced by the BJP and the Congress during recent Assembly election in Bihar and the bye-poll in Uttar Pradesh.

However, he was quick to dismiss the suggestion that the coming together of the four former Prime Ministers was to provide an impetus to the effort.

Stating that the four former PMs have come together on a non-political platform, he said the objective was to raise the core issues such as role of the RSS and ill effects of liberalisation.

“If the NDA functioned in accordance with its National Agenda, then the country would not face the problems it is facing today”, he stressed.

To a query, Gowda, who is on a private two-day visit to the City, said he had no plans of meeting leaders of other political parties in the State. He also dismissed as hypothetical, the possibility of an alliance with the AIADMK for the 2001 Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu.