Calcutta, Oct. 23 :    Calcutta, Oct. 23:  Saifuddin Chowdhury today deferred floating his much-hyped manch after failing to garner support from 'like-minded' people. 'I have to defer the formation of the manch since I am still getting feelers from more and more people and organisations across the state,' the former CPM MP said, adding that he would soon line up another convention to formally launch the platform. However, sources close to Saifuddin said he had decided to adopt a 'wait-and-watch policy' in the wake of the CPM's Kerala plenum, where Subhas Chakraborty - a perceived sympathiser - pledged loyalty to the party. The CPM has accepted some of the demands raised by the Bengal transport minister. Another potential ally, South 24-Parganas district secretary Samir Putatunda, also seems to be having second thoughts on backing Saifuddin, they said. According to the sources, both Chakraborty and Putatunda had agreed that any split in the CPM now would strengthen the Trinamul Congress-BJP combine in Bengal. The rebel leader was also handicapped by the poor show of strength in today's convention. Barring a few dissidents, no important CPM leader turned up. No senior functionary from frontal outfits like the DYFI, the SFI, Citu and the Ganatantrik Mahila Samity was present either. Among those who were present were Amar Bhattacharya, a former member of the CPM's Calcutta district committee, and Debashis Das, a former CPM councillor of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. Saifuddin indicated that he was not interested in engineering defections from his former party. 'I am not interested in breaking either the CPM or the Trinamul to strengthen my new forum. Both the CPM and myself believe in socialism. But I want to change our attitude towards socialism. Let the CPM follow the concept of socialism in their own way and I will interpret it in my own way,' he said. But while a cautious Saifuddin decided to wait for an opportune moment, in Thiruvananthapuram, the scene of dramatic turnabouts in CPM ideology, general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet lashed out at his former colleague, saying the exit of dissidents like him could in no way affect the party. At a news conference, Surjeet said the CPM had lost bigger leaders than Saifuddin. 'Important leaders like Nagi Reddy in Andhra Pradesh left us following differences in opinion. But that did not deter our growth,' he said. 'We allow differences in opinion, but going against the party line in public is one thing we don't allow,' Surjeet asserted. 'Giants have had to leave the party for violating this fundamental norm.'