Patna,(BiharTimes): Though four out of 27 Congress legislators managed to become minister two prominent names could not be inducted. They are former speaker and ex-President of Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee, Sadanand Singh, and former legislative party leader, Ashok Ram.

Ironically, two of the four Congress ministers are from upper castes. This is highest representation of upper castes in the three parties of grand alliance. Madan Mohan Jha is a Brahmin while Awadesh Singh a Rajput.

The BPCC president and the new education minister, Ashok Chaudhary, is a Dalit and Abdul Jalil Mastan, a Muslim.

There is not a single Bhumihar from the Congress quota, though this caste once used to dominate the party.

In fact there is only one B humihar minister in the 28-member Nitish Kumar cabinet. He is Rajeev Ranjan, alias Lallan Singh from Janata Dal (United).

Sadanand Singh, a Kurmi from Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur, could not make it to the cabinet. Though the grand alliance performed very well in Bhagalpur and Banka not a single MLA from these two districts has been inducted.

Bhagalpur MLA of Congress party Ajit Sharma, who defeated the son of BJP MP Ashwini Choubey, and Amita Bhushan, legislator from Begusarai, are two Bhumihars who won on Congress party ticket in the recent election.

Similarly, Ashok Chaudhary walked away with the quota of Dalit minister from the party. This deprived Ashok Ram, another senior SC leader from becoming minister. Both of them are sons of senior Congress leaders of yesteryears. The BPCC chief is the son of late Mahavir Chaudhary, while Ashok Ram is the son of late Baleshwar Ram.

Last time the Congress was in power in the state was between 2000 and 2005 when 25 of its legislators supported the Rabri Devi government after RJD failed to get majority on its own. While Sadanand was elected as the Speaker rest of the party MLAs were made minister by Rabri.

The Congress has been out of power in the state since March 1990 after it lost election. The chief minister then was Dr Jaganath Mishra.

The victory in 27 out of 41 seats it contested injected a sense of confidence in the workers of the Congress party, which is hoping to stage a comeback at the Centre.

But political observers are of the view that the party will have to go a long way as at present it has only 44 MPs in Lok Sabha.

In Bihar the party won disproportionately large number of seats because of Lalu Prasad’s RJD and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and less on its own strength.

Analysts are of the view that the party will have to broad-base its social base and tone up its organization if it wants to seriously challenge the Narendra Modi government. It will have to learn to walk on its own and not on the pair of crutches supplied by regional satraps.