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New Delhi/Patna, Sep 28 (IANS) The Congress Tuesday said it had given more representation to the Muslim community, women and youth in the first list of candidates for the October-November Bihar assembly polls but a section of state leaders expressed unhappiness over their nominees being overlooked.
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The first list, released Monday night, has 22 candidates from the minority committee including state Congress chief Mehboob Ali Kaiser and 14 women including Lovely Anand, wife of former MP Anand Mohan, who has been in jail for the past three years in the 1994 murder of Gopalganj district magistrate G. Krishnaiah.
The party's legislative party leader Ashok Ram has also been given a ticket.
Party leaders in New Delhi said that the minority community has shown signals of moving towards the Congress and the party wants to send a message that it is reaching out to them. Minorities comprise around 16 percent of the state's population.
They said that Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi have been keen on giving more tickets to women and youth.
Former Bihar minister Nagmani, who had joined the Congress earlier this month from Rashtriya Janata Dal, has also been given a ticket.
The Congress is expected to release its second list of candidates by Friday. Having received several applications for each seat, party leaders have a tough task on their hands to satisfy aspirants who did not get tickets and persuade them to work for official nominees.
Meanwhile, Anand and Sadhu Yadav Tuesday expressed unhappiness over denial of tickets to their supporters in the first list of candidates.
The former MPs blamed some Congress leaders for denial of tickets to their supporters.
A Congress worker close to Anand, who was earlier in the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) said that she was unhappy as names of many of her supporters were missing from the list of candidates despite assurance by the party.
Dozens of Anand's supporters protested and raised slogans against the Congress in Saharsa district Tuesday morning and asked her not to file nomination papers Wednesday.
Sadhu Yadav, who is brother-in-law of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, has reportedly resigned from the state Congress election campaign committee after his supporters were denied tickets.
Yadav contested the Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket in 2009 but lost.
The Congress is contesting all 243 seats in the assembly on its own.
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