Dalit count up to 10,Muslim down to 5

the Council of Ministers announced on Wednesday had just five Muslim faces one less than in the previous UPA government.

One trend the Congress attributes its 2009 surge to is the return of Muslims to the party in several states,especially in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. In fact,the Congress tally in districts with 25% or more of minority presence went up four-fold to 42. But given that the party fielded only 18 Muslims of whom 11 were elected,the Council of Ministers announced on Wednesday had just five Muslim faces one less than in the previous UPA government.

Of these five,two are from the Congress.

Incidentally,30 Muslims were elected in this Lok Sabha,of whom 27 are with the UPA.

In comparison,the Council of Ministers has 10 Dalit faces,up from seven in the last government. Two are from Karnataka: Mallikarjun Kharge and K H Muniyappa; two from Maharashtra: Sushilkumar Shinde and Mukul Wasnik; Kumari Selja from Haryana; Panabaka Lakshmi from Andhra Pradesh; Mohan Jatua of Trinamool Congress from West Bengal; Meira Kumar from Bihar; A Raja from Tamil Nadu; and,Krishna Tirath from Delhi.

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The Congress could not find a suitable Dalit ministerial face from Uttar Pradesh where it did remarkably well in the elections with Rahul Gandhi spearheading the campaign,reaching out to Dalit voters who had gone the BSP way in previous elections. But the Congress is confident that this healthy Dalit representation will send the right signal across the country.

A group of prominent Muslim representatives had issued an appeal seeking at least 11 Muslim ministers arguing this would be in keeping with Sachar Committee recommendation and in fulfilment of the committee made by the UPA chairperson and the Prime Minister for a fair representation of minorities at all levels.

Of the five Muslim faces,only two are of Cabinet rank and both Farooq Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad are from the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir. The other three are Salman Khursheed from UP,E Ahamed (IUML) from Kerala and Sultan Ahmed (Trianamool) from West Bengal.

From Bihar,the lone Muslim MP of the Congress,Maulana Asrarul Haque,does not figure in the list though he was counting on an MoS post.

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Said Zafarul Islam Khan,chief of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat: This sends a negative message to the community. Presence in the Council of Ministers sends a strong message of empowerment and to reduce it to an arithmetic formula is disappointing.

When contracted,Imran Kidwai,chief of the Congresss minority cell,said: Overall,the tally of Muslim MPs is disappointing but the Congress has done well since 11 of our 18 MPs returned victorious. How to increase this number is a subject that we will review in the party.