In fact, officials of the Backwards Classes Welfare department are wondering whether such a committee can mark out Muslim OBCs.

The chief minister said at his press conference on February 8 that a committee comprising officials from the minorities department, the BCW department, the Minorities Commission and the BCW Commission will be set up to look at the issue.

No such committee, however, has been formed so far.

Most of the officials at the BCW department this reporter talked to said they had no idea about such a committee.

Chief Secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti, who was supposed to issue the notification, admitted no such committee has been formed. “I will have to find out why this did not happen,” he said when pressed for an answer.

Chairman of the Minorities Commission S Z Adnan said, “I too am yet to get any communication from the government.”

Meanwhile, Left Front ministers are facing people’s anger for the delay.

At a seminar at Beniapukur yesterday, which was attended by former MP Syed Sahabuddin, a section of the audience got angry and asked Tourism Minister Manab Mukherjee, who was the chief guest, what the government was doing regarding the chief minister’s promise. When the minister could not give a satisfactory answer, he was booed at by the audience.

According to officials of the BCW department, while it is only the BCW Commission which can decide on which group can be included in the OBC list, no member of the two commissions can become members of another committee. “The commissions are quasi-judicial body and we don’t know how one of their members can become members of another committee,” said a senior official of the department.