UNPA leaders to meet Kalam on June 20

Chennai, June 18 (UNI) Leaders of the newly formed United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), which decided to support President A P J Abdul Kalam for a second term, would meet him on June 20 to persuade him to be the front's nominee.

Disclosing this to newspersons at the airport, Telugu Desam Party leader N Chandrababu Naidu, one of the architects of the alliance, said the President has given an appointment for the leaders to meet him at 1530 hrs on June 20 at Rashtrapathi Bhavan.

He said leaders of all eight parties in the UNPA, including AIADMK General Secretary J Jayalalithaa, Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, Indian National Lok Dal leader Om Prakash Chautala and MDMK General Secretary Vaiko would meet Dr Kalam and persuade him to be a candidate for a second term.

Asked what would be UNPA's next move in the event of Dr Kalam turning down the offer, Mr Naidu said ''as of now we are going to convince and persuade him and the next course of action would be decided after his response.'' Mr Naidu replied in the negative when asked whether his meeting with Superstar Rajnikanth was an attempt to renew his efforts to bring the actor to join the UNPA.

It was just a courtesy call, whenever Rajnikanth visited Hyderabad, he used to come to my house to have a cup of tea and he was reciprocating the gesture. The TDP leader made it clear that they did not discuss politics, but only family matters and some general issues.

UNI