Congress sets up 51-member campaign panel for Bihar

Congress tonight constituted a 51-member campaign committee for Bihar for Lok Sabha polls giving representation to all factions of the state unit.

Besides incumbent PCC chief Ashok Chowdhary, the jumbo list includes former PCC chiefs Shakeel Ahmed, Anil Sharma, Ramjatan Sinha and Chandan Bagachi. CLP leader Sadanand Singh figures in it with two former CLP leaders Ashok Ram and Vijay Shanker Dubey.

Congress is contesting on 12 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar in alliance with Lalu Prasad's RJD

After ruling the state on its own for four decades, Congress got out of power in Bihar in the wake of Mandal and Mandir waves in the nineties and has been largely out of power except a brief spell of participating in an alliance government with RJD.

The campaign committee list includes eight ex-ministers including Awadesh Kumar Singh, Shyam Sundar Singh Dheeraj, Vishwa Mohan Sharma, Sanjeev Prasad Tony, Hind Kesari Yadav Bilat Paswan Bihangam and Ramprit Paswan.

Shakeelur Rahman, Prem Chand Mishra, Vinita Vijay and Amita Bhushan too are members of the committee among others.