After a 7-hour meet last week, the CPM's Bengal unit decided on a tie-up with Congress.
Should the Left and the Congress come together and put up a united front against the Trinamool Congress in Bengal? That's the question the CPM's Central Committee -- party's highest executive body -- will discuss over the next two days in Delhi.
Facing a tough battle ahead in the forthcoming Bengal assembly elections, a section of CPM leaders had proposed an alliance with the Congress.
On February 13, the Bengal unit of the party -- in the presence of general secretary Sitaram Yechury and senior leader Prakash Karat -- discussed the issue at length.
To avoid a split in the anti-Trinamool votes, Bengal comrades had proposed that the Congress and the Left work together. A section of the Congress too is interested in a tie-up.
"It is up to the high command to take a decision, but workers on the ground want the two parties to work together," Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, chief of Bengal Congress, had told NDTV earlier.
Congress leaders from Bengal had conveyed the same when they had met party vice president Rahul Gandhi in January for a discussion on election strategy for Bengal.
But the move has been opposed by CPM's Kerala unit. They argue that in Kerala, Left's main rival is the Congress. The Left Democratic Front, or LDF, has been a leading a strong campaign against the Congress-led United Democratic Front, or UDF, in Kerala.
"In Bengal, there is little chance of our coming to power even with an alliance but in Kerala, the LDF is poised to form the next government. Such an alliance will weaken our fight," a senior CPM leader opposed to the alliance, told NDTV.
On Monday, the party's Politburo -- the highest decision making body -- discussed it but there was no consensus. A final decision is expected on Thursday when the Central Committee of the CPM firms up election strategy.