Sources at the party’s Alimuddin Street headquarters said the leaders are trying to work out a formula that would give them results without leading to the fall of the UPA government and mid-term elections. This politburo meeting was held in Kolkata so senior member Jyoti Basu could attend it. The 94-year-old leader has not been keeping well and had to skip the last politburo meeting because it was held in Delhi.

It was after that meeting — the first after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s comment on the Left’s support to his government — that the politburo had told the UPA government not to “operationalise the deal” or face “dire consequences”.

The party’s Bengal leaders were not happy with this stand pushed on the party by general secretary Prakash Karat, and have since managed to get the Delhi leaders to soften their tone on the issue.

Karat, emerging in the evening from the politburo meeting’s second session, was tightlipped.”Whatever we have discussed will be put before the CC,” he said, referring to the central committee, the highest policy-making body. “After the CC meeting, we will brief the media.”

MK Pandhe, another politburo member and president of the CITU, the party’s labour wing, said: “We discussed all relevant political issues.”