While the party central leadership has supported the West Bengal Government’s decision to mount an offensive against Maoists in Lalgarh, it does not want a repeat of a Nandigram-like situation where over a dozen people died in police firing. In this context, its message to state leaders will be to handle the situation carefully. Bhattacharjee, who also handles the Home portfolio, had skipped the Politburo meeting held immediately after elections last month claiming that his presence was needed in the state as he feared post-poll violence. Ironically, he is attending the party meetings this time around while the situation in Lalgarh is deteriorating by the hour.

As regarding the main agenda of analysing the poll outcome, the central committee is likely to arrive at a conclusion that the Third Front plan failed miserably and hold state-specific as well as national factors responsible for the debacle in a fine balancing act of sharing the blame. While the Bengal lobby wants to run down Karat’s Third Front fancy, the central leadership believes that the adverse impact of Nandigram and Singur, the factional feud and the differences in the LDF played a role in the setback.