New Delhi, April 22: Mamata Banerjee has taken her battle with the Marxists beyond Bengal — to the power corridors of Delhi.

While the Left parties are desperate to revive the stillborn third front to arrest their slide in national politics, the Trinamul Congress chief has been trying to scuttle the efforts of her arch rival with equal vigour.

Mamata has been quietly tapping Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Yadav and Lalu Prasad, hoping to exploit their fear of the women’s quota bill to pre-empt the Left. The Yadav trio have apparently found a friend in Mamata ever since her party kept away from voting on the bill in the Rajya Sabha and raised the demand for a quota within the quota for Muslim women.

The three are learnt to be co-ordinating closely with Mamata, hoping that the second-largest UPA ally can help them scuttle the legislation. As for Mamata, she can be seen smiling and talking to Lalu Prasad and Mulayam in Parliament though she had made her dislike for both obvious when she began her stint in the cabinet.

Sources said that after the government convened an all-party meeting over the women’s reservation bill, Mamata took the Yadav trio for a private meeting with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.

The sources said the Yadav leaders urged Mukherjee not to bring the bill in the Lok Sabha and, in turn, promised to support the finance bill.

Not that the Left has been sitting idle. A week after the all-party meeting on the bill, the Left parties invited Lalu Prasad and Mulayam to a meeting of 13 parties over price rise. At the meeting, sources said, CPM and CPI leaders assured Lalu Prasad and Mulayam that they wouldn’t allow the government to “bulldoze” the bill through the Lok Sabha.

“At the meeting, both Lalu Prasad and Mulayam were aggressive. They took on the Left leaders for warming up to the government on women’s reservation and then seeking their support to take on the government over price rise,” a leader present at the meeting said.

The leader said the Left leaders then promised both that they wouldn’t let the government table the bill in the Lok Sabha without proper consultation. The Left leaders are also learnt to have said that though they couldn’t afford to change their stand on the bill, they wouldn’t oppose the government if it proposed a quota within the quota.

Sources said Mamata was playing on the insecurities of the Yadavs for double benefit. On the one hand, she was trying to weaken the Left; on the other, a Congress leader said, she was trying to project herself as a “troubleshooter” for Mukherjee. The leader added that Mamata needs Mukherjee in her ongoing spat with Bengal Congress leaders over share of seats in the civic polls next month.