Patna, May 19 (IANS) : While speculation mounted over whether Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad would continue in the union cabinet, a section of Congress workers here Tuesday took to the streets Tuesday to insist that it shouldn't be so.

Disregarding the scorching heat, Congress workers marched with posters and banners to ask party president Sonia Gandhi to keep Lalu Prasad, railways minister in the outgoing cabinet, out of the new United Progressive Alliance government.   

"Congress workers and leaders staged a protest against Lalu's likely entry into the UPA government and urged Sonia Gandhi not to induct him in the government" said Azmi Bari, a senior Congress leader.   

"Congressmen in Bihar are against Lalu's entry into the government and any alignment of the Congress with him or his party," said Lalan Kumar, a Youth Congress leader.   

President of the party's state unit Anil Kumar Sharma added that party members in Bihar were of the view that any association with Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Ram Vilas Paswan, union steel minister who lost the election from Hajipur, would harm the party's revival prospects in Bihar.   

He described Lalu Prasad and Paswan as "casteist and opportunist" and said they had "dismissed the Congress as a party without a support base in Bihar" but the results had proved otherwise.   

The Congress won 206 seats in the national elections, including two in Bihar, while the RJD managed just four seats and the LJP none.