New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday held consultations with leaders of different constitutents of the UPA.
The exercise came as part of regular interactions during Parliament session beginning Tuesday.
The meeting was attended by Lalu Yadav of RJD, Sharad Pawar of NCP, T R Balu of DMK, Ram Vilas Paswan of LJP and Sibu Soren of JMM, all senior Cabinet Ministers and representatives of other constituents.
Although Sonia has been conducting such interactions with the Left parties during meetings of the UPA-Left Coordination Committees, there had been no formal mechanism of consultations at the political level among the coalition partners themselves.
Representatives of various other UPA parties barring the PDP attended Tuesday's deliberations held against the backdrop over the political storm over the leakage of the report of the Pathak Authority, which has indicted former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh.
UPA sources said the meeting was necessary for Parliamentary coordination and it deliberated on issues like discussion in Parliament on the Indo-US nuclear deal.
It was unclear whether the notice of breach of privilege against Prime Minister by Natwar Singh and others came up for consideration and whether the proposed bill for OBC quota in private educational institutions was raised.
Several constituents of the UPA had been favouring such formal consultations with the NCP even telling the Congress bluntly that it should not treat the UPA as its "fiefdom".
A Congress leader said the meeting was for the limited for the purpose of coordination in Parliament.
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