A rally will be organised for the memorial service, which would take place at Sahid Minar Maidan on Sunday. Lakhs of people from Kolkata and neighboring North and South 24-Parganas are expected to attend the rally.

Party sources said the Left avoided holding a rally at the Brigade Parade ground for two reasons — there would be legal problems and a Brigade rally cannot be organised in three days.

According to sources with CPM headquarters, Alimuddin Street, the party will invite all national parties including the Congress, the BJP and other UPA partners to the rally. The regional parties to be invited are Sibu Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Nabin Pattanaik’s Biju Janata Dal and Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference, among others.

“We won’t see the colour of a party before inviting it to the condolence meeting. We hope all the parties will send their leaders,” said a CPM leader.

Congress sources said, as the party president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had come down to Kolkata to pay last respects to the departed communist leader, there would be no problem for the state leaders to attend the rally.

“Which UPA ally will not come and why they have decided to skip Basu’s memorial service, it is not our consideration,” said a senior leader of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee.

Trinamool sources, meanwhile, said attending the rally will be a problem for the party as Banerjee has virtually boycotted the chief minister and asked all her ranks not to meet him on any occasion.