Yogi, Maurya among BJP star campaigners for Jharkhand polls

Ranchi, Nov 16: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya have been named among BJP's star campaigners for the 1st phase of the upcoming Jharkhand Assembly Polls on Saturday.

PM Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, party Working President JP Nadda and BJP MP from Gurdaspur, Sunny Deol are also in the list.

Union Ministers Arjun Munda, Prahlad Joshi, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Dharmendra Prasad, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Smriti Irani, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Nityanand Rai also feature in the list.

Arun Singh, Jual Oram, Keshav Prasad Maurya, Om Prakash Mathur, Soudan Singh, Nand Kishore Yadav, Manoj Tiwari, Sunny Deol, Ravi Kishan, Laxman Giluwa, VD Ram, Ram Vichar Netam, Sudarshan Bhagat, Sameer Oraon, Kariya Munda, Dharampal Singh, Deepak Prakash, Sunil Singh, Annapurna Devi Yadav, Sanjay Seth, Ravindra Rai, Mangal Pandey, Mahendra Singh and Aditya Sahu amongst other party leaders in the list.

PM Modi is expected to address five to eight rallies and Home Minister Amit Shah will address at least 10 rallies.

Jharkhand will vote in five phases, with the first on November 30 and the last on December 20. Results will be declared on December 23.

The five candidates are from seats that will go to polls in the first phase on November 30. November 13 is the last date of filing nominations. Jarkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal had recently announced a pre-poll alliance for the state and former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren will be the alliance's CM face.

The Congress will contest 31 seats out of 81 seats in the Jharkhand assembly. The RJD will contest on seven seats, while the largest chunk of the alliance share has gone to the JMM, which will contest elections on 43 seats.