The head of the centre-left Civic Coalition, Elisa Carrió, said a recent meeting between Vice-President Julio Cobos and Francisco De Narváez, one of the leaders of the dissident Peronist Unión-PRO, meant a major blow to the supporters of the Social and Civic Accord alliance.

Carrió said she was upset after Cobos, a former Radical who has informally joined the coalition's troika with the Radical Party and the Socialists, met with the leader of the Unión-PRO slate in Buenos Aires province on Wednesday, only weeks before to the mid-term elections.

Cobos said the meeting meant to express his support for De Narváez after a judge in Buenos Aires announced he would summon the candidate for his purported ties with an alleged drug trafficker.

De Narváez has repeatedly dismissed he had any relationship with Mario Segovia, known as the Ephedrine King, and accused the Kirchner administration of instigating the judge in charge of the investigation as part of a political manoeuvre.

After the meeting, government officials, as well as the Social and Civic Accord criticized the meeting.

The photos of the gathering that were published by the media, Carrió said, were not the photos of solidarity, because solidarity can be expressed in many other ways, hence suggesting that Cobos' move may have been intended to seduce other sectors of the opposition in the view of the presidential vote in 2011.

"His actions have affected the morale of our supporters, and now we are working hard to supporting the members of our party... I'm very sad about what happened," Carrió concluded. She is the third candidate in the Congressional slate of the Social and Civic Accord in Buenos Aires City.

Cobos later responded to the accusations made by other sectors of the opposition, claiming "no one will be able to set my (his) agenda."

Cobos said he "couldn't understand the reactions that my meeting with De Narváez generated, especially given the crisis that is striking Argentina."

"I will continue to receive people, following the attributions I have as a Vice-President of the country," he concluded.