On Monday, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat had upbraided the Revolutionary Socialist Party for criticising his party’s decision to welcome private capital.

“What have you been doing in the Left Front for 30 years if you have not realised that the Left has to work within a capitalist system?” Karat had asked RSP.

The Forward Bloc, which is leading the so-called mini-Left Front, had already met the RSP on Monday to discuss their complaints against the CPM. On Tuesday, it was scheduled to meet the CPI over similar issues.

Following Karat’s stinging comment, the three parties decided today to hold a joint meeting without any delay.

Ashok Ghosh, the Forward Bloc state secretary and undeclared chief of the mini-Left Front, told reporters after the meeting that no decision taken by a single party could be termed a Left Front decision.

“We have not reached a state where we have to follow the diktat of a single party,” said Ghosh, indicating their common grouse against the CPM without naming the party.

A source said that minister and RSP leader Kshiti Goswami, who has been outspoken in his criticism of the CPM over issues like Nandigram, raised Karat’s comment at the meeting.

“There is a legitimate ground for our criticism of the CPM,” Goswami is reported to have told the participants. “That the CPM is helping capitalists is not a new thing. But Karat’s attack was not called for.”