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Efforts to give a final  shape to a national alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party continued on Sunday with Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat [Images] meeting Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati [Images] in Delhi [Images].

Karat drove to the Uttar Pradesh [Images] chief minister's residence in Delhi and held discussions with her for around three hours.

The CPI-M leader avoided reporters, who were waiting outside Mayawati's residence.

Sources said that the two leaders discussed about the formation of a 'national alternative' to the two mainstream parties.

The meeting assumes significance in the wake of Mayawati unilaterally announcing that her party would contest all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.

Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu [Images] had on Saturday met both Karat and Mayawati and had said that he had discussed ways to evolve the Third Front.