New Delhi, June 24: The Samajwadi Party and Telugu Desam have reached an advanced stage of negotiation to come together under a single umbrella.

The move is aimed at increasing the collective weight of the parties in national politics and helping them take centre-stage if a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative needs to be formed after the next general elections.

Samajwadi leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and Desam boss Chandrababu Naidu discussed the proposal when they met in Lucknow yesterday, sources said.

“The SP and TDP have already started coordination both inside and outside Parliament. We are trying to close our ranks even further,” deputy leader of the Samajwadi parliamentary board Mohan Singh said today.

The sources said the parties were more interested in preparing for a major role a few years on than profiting from their consolidated strength in the present Parliament.

The move is based on the parties’ assessment that the Congress and BJP are on the decline and would vacate space for other parties in the next general election. Hence, a race to fill up that space would become imminent sooner or later.

At present, the Left parties form the largest bloc after the Congress and BJP. Separately, neither the Samajwadi nor Desam can compete with the Left to capture the centre of any future non-Congress, non-BJP formation.

Under a front, however, Mulayam and Naidu could stand a better chance of being on more or less the same footing as the Left in terms of number of MPs after the next general election, the sources said.

This is why Mulayam and Naidu, while talking separately to Left parties, are simultaneously in a huddle to come under a single political umbrella.

In the present Parliament, too, the move would benefit the two parties, the sources said, adding that despite having 37 MPs, the Samajwadi has not been able to carve out any significant place in national politics.

The Desam, too, knows that its influence cannot grow beyond Andhra Pradesh by tying up with the BJP. With the Samajwadi, it could get a chance to sneak into national politics in the long run.