Calcutta, Aug. 9 :    Calcutta, Aug. 9:  Finding himself cornered, transport minister Subhas Chakraborty, the perceived arrowhead of party dissidents, has offered to quit the CPM. On the third and last day of the state committee meeting, Chakraborty said: 'I will not hesitate to quit the party if a section of the hostile leadership does not stop maligning me.' Sources close to Chakraborty said tonight that the minister had attacked a section of state party leaders because he felt 'offence is the best defence'. Many party heavyweights have taken swipes at Chakraborty for his open fondness for Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee and his 'severe criticism of the Left Front government'. At the meeting, dissidents failed to carry through their argument that the central leadership should be more open to joining a government at the Centre. The majority of state party leaders stood by the draft prepared by the central committee, which is learnt to be still somewhat vague on the question that created such upheaval after Jyoti Basu was prevented by the CPM from heading a government in Delhi. Chakraborty's close associate and minister for housing Goutam Deb also criticised the leadership for its failure to stop squabbles in the North 24-Parganas unit and urged more active intervention from the top. Another Chakraborty loyalist, environment minister Manab Mukherjee, alleged that several sub-committees in the party's student and youth wings were formed in an undemocratic manner and urged the leadership to tackle the problem. Jyoti Basu and party general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet called on all state committee members to work unitedly. They said this was not the right time to engage in skirmishes with elections scheduled in a few months. Chakraborty and his associates were anticipating severe punishment to be announced against the minister as he had made several statements praising Mamata and publicly accused the government of failing to deliver. But when they found the party was holding fire, the Chakraborty-led group went on the attack against a section of the leadership. Rather than emerge entirely unhappy from the session, Chakraborty and his supporters drew pleasure from the warning issued by the leadership to Amitava Nandy, their powerful rival in the North 24-Parganas unit, for his alleged involvement in a bribery scandal. Laxmi Chatterjee, the main accused, was expelled from the party. Senior party leaders rapped Nandy on the knuckles as he had apparently tried to suppress the case and shield Chatterjee.