By Manoj Pathak

Patna, Jul 30 (IANS): Almost all parties have started preparations for the likely Assembly election in Bihar this year. The Congress, which is facing allegations of neglecting the backward community within the party, is now engaged in balancing the caste equations.

Two days ago, the Congress tried to give a message to strengthen the caste matrix through nomination of district presidents. The party tried to appease Muslim voters by nominating Parvez Alam as the president in Bhagalpur district, while in the same district, nominated Abhyanand Jha and Vipin Bihari Yadav as executive president, in a nod to the upper caste and backwards.

Similarly, while the responsibility of Sheikhpura district has been given to Sundar Sahni, the leadership of Patna city has been handed over to Sashiranjan Yadav. In addition, the Congress has made Sridhar Tiwari acting president in Bhojpur district, while Satish Kumar is president of Nawada district, and Bengali Paswan have been given the responsibility of acting president.

A Congress leader also accepts this, saying on condition of anonymity, "While the Congress has tried to help the upper caste and Muslim communities through the nomination of these leaders, the backward community within the party itself has rebelled and it has also started trying to pacify the voices."

Four of these nominated leaders have previously been in the Youth Congress.

It is noteworthy that Kailash Pal, who was the state vice-president of the Congress, had resigned from all posts in the Congress Election Campaign Committee meeting in the past, in front of several senior leaders, who accused him of neglecting the backwards in the party. After this, the head of the election campaign committee and Rajya Sabha MP Akhilesh Singh also had to come forward and he said that the Congress respects all communities and will take care of them.

Kailash Pal expressed satisfaction over the preference of all the communities in the nomination of the district presidents and said that this is a good initiative. He said, "This is a good start. What else do we want in Congress? We only want social justice in the party. "