Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, 9 other ministers to campaign in Jharkhand

PATNA: At least 10 cabinet ministers from Bihar, including CM Nitish Kumar , will campaign in Jharkhand where assembly elections will be held in five phases from November 30 to December 20.

Besides the CM, JD(U) has named Shyam Rajak, Ram Sewak Singh, Shravan Kumar, Ashok Choudhary, Narendra Narayan Yadav, Sanjay Kumar Jha and Santosh Kumar Nirala (all ministers) for the first-phase campaigning in favour of the party candidates.

From BJP side, its two ministers — Nand Kishor Yadav and Mangal Pandey — will campaign in Jharkhand. Yadav is the election co-incharge of BJP in Jharkhand while Pandey was recently made incharge for all assembly seats in Palamu region. However, the name deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi is missing from the BJP’s star campaigners’ list. Other prominent BJP leaders from Bihar in the star campaigners list are Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Nityanand Rai.

“Ram Sewak is already camping in Jharkhand while Shravan will reach Saraikela and Chaibasa on November 16 for filing of the nomination papers by JD(U) candidates in West Singhbhum and Saraikela-Kharsawan districts,” JD(U) Jharkhand unit president Salkhan Murmu told TOI over phone.

Murmu said Ram Sewak held a meeting with party leaders at Hazaribagh to finalize the candidates for the third phase. He would participate in filing of nomination papers by the party candidates from Silli and Tamar seats on November 16.

Bihar BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said other than Yadav and Pandey, many of our organizational leaders were actively coordinating in different constituencies in Jharkhand.