MUMBAI: Desperate to regain its lost ground among Muslim voters, Congress leaders in Maharashtra have begun reaching out to the community.

Ever since MIM cornered a huge chunk of Muslim votes bagging 26 seats in the recent Aurangabad municipal poll it played spoiler at Bandra east bypoll where Congress heavyweight Narayan Rane lost to Shiv Sena 's Trupti Sawant, Congress has been internally debating how to rebuild its "broken" bridges with the disgruntled Muslim community.

As part of the exercise to woo the Muslims back, some senior Congress leaders, including state chief Ashok Chavan and city president Sanjay Nirupam, met over 100 clerics, imams and preachers at Madrassa Jamia Qadriya Ashrafia in Grant Road on Wednesday evening. The evening's emcee and former Congress MLA Yusuf Abrahni allowed just two persons to air the community's complaints against the Congress. They raised familiar issues like the Congress government's failure to handover Ismail Yusuf College to Muslims, then community's poor share in tickets for municipal, assembly and parliament elections, non-establishment of the branch of Aligarh Muslim University in the state, insufficient funds to welfare schemes for minorities and the much-debated Muslim quota.

"We admit our government did make some mistakes and couldn't fulfil all the promises made to the Muslims. We apologize for the mistakes and promise that our friendship, which has been in the doldrums in recent times will be revived again," said Nirupam.

"If Congress weakens, Muslims will be made to suffer more as the communal forces will succeed to implement its divisive agenda," he added.

He explained that, soon after Congress lost power in the state, the BJP-Sena government scuppered the 5% quota for Muslims given by the Congress government. This is first of a series of meetings the party has planned with sections of Muslims, including heads of sects and clerics.