New Delhi: Suggesting that a "grand" pre-poll alliance may not be "necessary", Congress today (Dec 31, 2003) said that it would adopt a "flexible approach" in its efforts to unify the secular parties to form a front against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha polls.

It said Congress president Sonia Gandhi has already initiated a move to bring them under one umbrella.

"The unification of the secular parties is aimed at securing the maximum number of seats and a strategy will be evolved to achieve the goal," party spokesman S Jaipal Reddy told reporters.

He also gave broad indications of working out a common minimum programme for the polls, saying, "The whole idea is to get maximum seats and this is our objective."

Reddy said that Gandhi had already held discussions with Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPM) leader H S Surjeet and talked to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M Karunanidhi to explore the possibility of uniting the secular forces but "no final shape had taken place".

She would be meeting many leaders who are committed to the cause of secularism, he said.

Reddy, however, declined to comment on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's comment that his Samajwadi Party would not join any front. "He is the Chief Minister of a State and we are extending outside support to his Government. We will not react to what he says."