With the Left parties in disarray after the Lok Sabha poll, West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has decided to skip the Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo meeting scheduled to be held tomorrow in New Delhi.

The meeting has been convened to review the party's poor electoral performance.

Bhattacharjee has not attempted to explain his planned absence, lending credence to the belief that he is deeply disappointed with the functioning of party general secretary Prakash Karat, which is widely considered autocratic.

With its bastions in West Bengal and Kerala shattered by the electorate, Bhattacharjee reportedly fears that the meeting would turn into a blame game, which he wants to avoid.

His avoidance of the meet is also seen as a defiance of the party's New Delhi leadership, headed by Karat and senior leader Sitaram Yechuri.

Bhattacharjee, along with CPM doyen Jyoti Basu, were against the Left withdrawing support to the United Progressive Alliance over the nuclear deal last year.

The attempt to pull down the union government, along with its high-handed actions to acquire farmland for industrial projects at Nandigram and Singur in Bengal, has contributed to its poor showing, as the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress making maximum capital out of the issue.

The Left parties continue to rule West Bengal and Kerala. In Bengal, the Left enjoys a brute majority of 235 in the 294-member assembly, but ever since it fared badly in panchayat elections last year, its doom has been written on the wall.

The situation in Kerala is similar, as infighting between chief minister V S Achyudanandan and state CPM boss P Vijayan has spilled out in the open and antagonised voters.