New Delhi, April 25: The Congress leadership is planning some kind of a social engineering in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to widen the party?s support base in the two heartland states.

The party?s central leaders want to take advantage of the ongoing organisational polls in these states where the Congress has never really recovered its base among the upper castes, Dalits and Muslims since the 1989 general elections.

Sources said Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ram Jatan Sinha, whose leadership proved to be a disaster in the recent Assembly elections, has been asked to step down. The leadership, they added, may no longer be particular that the person who succeeds Sinha ? who is from the forward Bhumihar community ? should be from among the upper castes.

While the leadership?s preferences at the PCC level may not be very pronounced, at the district committee and block levels, central leaders are keen to bring in more people to positions of authority from among Muslims and backward communities rather than let the upper castes continue their traditional domination.

This kind of social engineering is already being sought to be implemented in Uttar Pradesh where the election process for district committee and block-level polls is in its final stages. Instructions have been sent to returning officers appointed by the party?s central election authority to give 50 per cent of the posts to women, Muslims, Dalits and other backward communities.

To facilitate the social engineering, instructions have been given to ensure that those who have served two consecutive terms should not be considered for re-election. This would help to end the traditional domination of the forward communities.

AICC secretary J.D. Seelum, the assistant returning officer for Uttar Pradesh, said unless the party took such steps, the Congress would find it difficult to win back its ?traditional supporters from the minority and Dalit communities?.

His target is to have women and representatives from Muslim, Dalit and other backward communities to head at least 40 to 50 of the 112 district and city Congress committees in the state. The social engineering target fits neatly into Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Salman Khursheed?s plans to revitalise the state unit.