Calcutta, Feb. 1: The Left Front and the Trinamul Congress both tried to woo Muslims today by backing reservations for the community, but each tried to wrong-foot the other by asking it to act first.

The Left welcomed the Ranganath Misra commission’s recommendation for Muslim quotas in government jobs and education and accused the Centre, ruled by the Congress with Trinamul as its biggest ally, of sitting tight on the report.

The “Delhi first” line also allowed the CPM — which is yet to sort out ideological and constitutional issues about implementing Muslim quotas and wants to avoid allegations of vote-bank politics — to buy time from those allies who want the state to introduce the reservation without waiting for the Centre.

CPM state secretary and front chairman Biman Bose told the allies to send in writing any concrete suggestions they have to him and chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Mamata Banerjee said her party would implement the Misra recommendations if “we are voted to power in 2011” and criticised the state government for failing to act on any of the panel’s suggestions.

“The state government should have on its own implemented reservations for women from the minorities and for those economically backward,” she said.

After the meeting with allies, which Bhattacharjee skipped despite being at the CPM headquarters where it was held, Bose said: “The front today unanimously welcomed the Misra recommendations. But we are in the dark about the Centre’s intentions. It should have declared its position by now and taken the initiative for its implementation.”

He said it was the Centre’s responsibility to discuss the recommendations in Parliament and place its action-taken report, or consult national parties and finalise the modalities of implementation. The states are supposed to act on the Centre’s directives, he added.

Blaming Delhi is part of the front’s strategy to counter Mamata’s aggressive wooing of Muslims who have deserted the Left in droves.

Bose, however, mentioned a socio-economic criterion for quota eligibility too, reflecting the CPM’s worry that backing reservation for Muslims as a whole would be seen as a departure from its traditional position on the “creamy layer”.

“Since the Mandal days we have been asking for special provisions for the progress of socially and economically backward sections excluding their creamy layers. We can consider reservation for those who live below the poverty line (among Muslims),’’ he said. “The special provision can be extended even to the linguistic minorities.”

Three years ago, after the Sachar committee reported on Muslim backwardness, the CPM had demanded quotas for Dalits and the OBCs among Muslims — a stand compatible with the party’s “class-based politics”.

CPM leaders said the party was now in a dilemma over two options. One, back quotas for all Muslims, taking the Sachar-Misra line that the whole community is “backward”. Or two, ask for a larger quota for OBC Muslims and the inclusion of more sub-groups in the category.

The second option, coming in the form of a widened OBC quota, skirts constitutional hurdles to reservation on religious grounds — an issue the chief minister is worried about.

Bose mentioned this option, saying the number of Muslim communities on the state’s OBC list could be raised from 12 to 37 or above. But he also had something for the other camp, mentioning that the ancestors of most Muslims in Bengal were lower caste Hindus.

Some in the CPM, however, fear that reservation for all Muslims, who make up over 25 per cent of Bengal’s population, would raise the total quota volume to unmanageable levels and might trigger a Hindu backlash.

“Already a section of lower caste Hindus are unhappy with Mamata for playing the minority card and are coming back to us. So we need to be cautious,’’ a CPM state committee member said.

The CPM, therefore, needs time. Today it managed to hold back the Forward Bloc, which had written to the chief minister to set an “example” by introducing Muslim reservation in Bengal.

As Bose assured the front about the CPM’s agreement with the Misra report, party veteran Benoy Konar intervened to say the front must ask Delhi to act first. The CPI, RSP and the smaller partners backed Konar, helping shape the front’s formal position.

The CPM politburo had earlier welcomed “in principle” Misra’s sugges- tions for a 10 per cent quota for Muslims and 5 per cent for other minorities.

The party central committee, at its February 4-6 session here, will discuss the political, legal and administra- tive aspects of the matter and its implications on the Left-ruled states. The politburo meets on February 3.