Monday, May 15 2006 10:20 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: Ahead of the swearing-in of the seventh Left Front government in West Bengal on May 18, the CPI (M) yesterday (May 14, 2006) held separate talks with front partners where it was decided that the constituents would get portfolios earlier held by them.

"It is more or less decided in the talks that front partners would be given the portfolios they had held in successive terms. There are no differences among us," veteran Left Front leader and state secretary of the Forward Bloc, Ashok Ghosh, told sources .

The RSP state secretary, Debabrata Bandopadhyay, also emerging from the talks said that there would not be deviation from the earlier front ministries as far as allocation of portfolios was concerned.

The Left Front chairman, Biman Bose, who is also the state secretary of the CPI (M), held talks on the issue first with the leaders of the Forward Bloc and then the RSP. He will hold similar talks with CPI leaders later in the day.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee was present during the talks and CPI (M) patriarch Jyoti Basu was present only during talks with FB leaders.

Asked by reporters if media speculation that controversial party leader Subhas Chakraborty and another party leader Ashim Dasgupta would be shifted from transport and finance portfolios respectively, Basu said, "Subhas is O.K. So is Ashim." The talks came a day after the CPI (M) politburo at a meeting in New Delhi on Saturday approved a decision of the West Bengal party.