Calcutta, July 18: The Bengal unit is expected to endorse Prakash Karat’s line at the central committee meeting beginning in Delhi tomorrow but the leaders are also likely to explore options of delaying general elections if the UPA government loses the trust vote.

“The state secretariat today discussed the trust vote at length. Our goal is to prove that the government is in minority and it can’t go ahead with the nuclear deal. We should not press for fresh polls but let the Congress spell out its position first so that we aren’t blamed for early elections,’’ a state secretariat member said.

The comment betrayed the state leaders’ fears of setbacks — after the losses in the recent rural and municipal polls — in premature general elections.

The central committee meeting is expected to see the Bengal leaders fielding posers about the pullout and its aftermath. “Questions will also be raised on why the party depended so much on Pranab Mukherjee to deliver a compromise close to the Left’s position and why it failed to judge the moves of Mulayam Singh Yadav before announcing the pullout,’’ a committee member said.

The state secretariat meeting skipped other issues, such as Subhas Chakraborty’s public reservations about voting with the BJP, with Bengal unit chief Biman Bose saying the transport minister had admitted his “mistakes”.

Speaker at work

As the CPM prepared for the central committee meeting, Somnath Chatterjee had another day of meetings as the Lok Sabha’s presiding officer.

He also admitted during the day the one-line Lok Sabha motion that reads: “This House expresses its confidence in the council of ministers.”

Chatterjee briefed Speakers and officers of Assemblies on a Commonwealth conference of Speakers that is to be held in Kuala Lumpur from August 1 to 10. He is scheduled to attend the event.

Bengal Speaker and CPM MLA Hasim Abdul Halim, one of those who attended the session, saw no reason why the trip should be called off. “Why should he cancel his visit? He has to attend it as long as he is the Speaker.”

Other engagements, too, appeared to be going ahead. Sources close to the Speaker said he hadn’t cancelled the invitation sent to Amartya Sen to deliver the Hiren Mukherjee memorial lecture in Parliament on August 11. “The question of cancelling the event comes only if the government falls,’’ the source said.

In the evening, the Speaker had to rush to Calcutta to meet his sister whose son died of cancer in the US.

The CPM leadership is still insisting he is a party member first. Its mouthpiece, Ganashakti, underlined the Speaker’s primary identity as a CPM lawmaker.

Bose today confirmed that the Speaker hadn’t been served the whip to uphold “parliamentary decorum”. Chatterjee is likely to meet Jyoti Basu tomorrow, sources said.

Officially, the party has denied putting pressure on Chatterjee but leaders indicated Karat would want the Speaker to cast his decisive vote in case of a tie.

“The government will survive or fall by one or two votes. We will have one vote less if Somnathda doesn’t vote with us but the party has left t he decision to him,’’ said Basudev Acharya, the CPM parliamentary party leader.