Calcutta, May 11: The CPM today rejected the Opposition and allies’ proposal for an all-party meeting on Nandigram at the state level.

“The last Left Front meeting had decided on the meeting in the district (East Midnapore). If leaders of one or two partner parties want to change it, we can’t play to their tunes. Since I don’t hold the brief for all the partners, let the front committee decide,’’ state CPM secretary Biman Bose said after the party secretariat meeting this morning.

Bose, also the front chairman, has called an “emergency” front meeting to resolve the differences on May 14. Peace talks in the district would be “useful and realistic”, he added.

But Forward Bloc, RSP and CPI leaders, who met at the Bloc office this evening, supported the demand made by the Trinamul Congress and the Congress, insisting that a “political consensus had to be evolved first at the larger level before going into the specifics at the grassroots”.

“The peace initiative might be derailed as the Opposition is refusing to attend a district-level meeting,’’ Bloc state secretary Ashok Ghosh said.

Ghosh has conveyed the allies’ stand to Bose, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Jyoti Basu and Mamata Banerjee. “I told Mamata that a decision on the meeting will be taken on May 14.”

CPM leader Benoy Konar hinted that the party would rally the smaller partners against the “mini front” of the Bloc, RSP and the CPI. “We cannot ignore them.”

The chief minister and his predecessor Basu are trying to distance themselves from the controversy. “Buddha is more interested in initiating the talks fast rather than in procedural disputes,” CPI leader and water resources minister Nandagopal Bhattacharya said after a meeting with him.

Basu, who responds to questions after secretariat meetings, declined comment today, leaving it to Bose.

“The last front meeting had asked the East Midnapore unit to take immediate steps to restore peace in Nandigram. No specific decision was taken regarding the sequence of all-party meets,” said the RSP’s Kshiti Goswami.

The CPM and the allies virtually admitted that the dispute was not more political than procedural. The allies, who have put up a “front within the front” following differences with the CPM over industrialisation, want to score political points, a CPM leader said.

The allies insisted that the CPM’s insistence on the district meeting was a “bid to hide its Nandigram goof-ups and an expression of the fear of losing control over the front”.