Congress hints at joining Nitish Kumar govt

New Delhi: After its good show in the Bihar Assembly polls, Congress on Monday gave hints that it was open to the idea of participation in the Nitish Kumar government.

"We have given commitment to the people of Bihar about the implementation of the seven point programme. We will consider all these aspects," party General Secretary C P Joshi told reporters when asked if Congress was open on the issue of participation in the new government in Bihar.

Joshi, who is in charge of party affairs in the state, had initially said that it was party high command to decide the matter (of participation in the new government).

Yesterday, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had also steered clear of the issue.

Alliance route has struck gold for a beleaguered Congress in Bihar polls with the party winning 27 out of the 41 seats it contested by piggy riding Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad.

This is against just four seats it secured in the 2010 polls in which it had contested all the 243 seats.

In fact, Bihar is a first major victory for the party after the Lok Sabha polls in May last year that had plummeted its stock to the lowest ever - a mere 44 in the 543-member Lower House.

The party had not done well in the Assembly polls of Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. In Delhi, it had the ignominy of scoring a duck.