Jharkhand assembly polls: BJP not to name any CM candidate

PATNA: BJP will not project a chief ministerial candidate in Jharkhand, retaining suspense on whether four-time chief minister Arjun Munda would be made CM if the party wrests power from the JMM-led coalition in the forthcoming assembly polls.

"We will not annouce a chief ministerial name. The election will be fought in the name of Narendra Modi. So you don’t have to worry who will be an MLA or CM. You just have to work hard — like the Lok Sabha elections – so that the party wins 70 out of the 81 assembly seats," remarked BJP national president Amit Shah at a rally in Ranchi on Monday .

BJP decimated all other parties winning 12 out of the 14 LS seats from the state, but the party is confronted with in-house problems. The state leadership question is something which can upset its calculations as it braces for the assembly elections.

Though Munda would reckon himself to be the front-runner for the CM’s post, the BJP president’s statement raises the prospect of other CM hopefuls in the party. BJP has always made a tribal the CM. It formed the first state government with Babu Lal Marandi as the chief minister in 2000 who was replaced in 2003 by Arjun Munda.

Backed by Rajnath Singh, Munda was able to marginalise rivals making him the natural choice for the CM’s post.