Union minister and BJP’s election in-charge for Jharkhand Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Sunday that the saffron party will form the next government in the state by uprooting the “corrupt” JMM-led coalition from power.

Chouhan and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is BJP’s election co-incharge for Jharkhand, held a meeting with party leaders, MLAs, MPs, and workers in Ranchi to prepare strategies for the assembly elections in the state due later this year. He said the BJP had an outstanding performance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls in Jharkhand where it won eight seats and its ally AJSU Party bagged one. “We had a lead in 52 of the 81 assembly seats in the parliamentary polls. The state played an important role in securing the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I congratulate the party leadership, booth workers and people of Jharkhand for the achievement,” he said.

The party will work under the leadership of Babulal Marandi and form the next government in Jharkhand in the upcoming assembly polls, he said. Chouhan alleged that the current JMM-led dispensation in the state is “India’s most corrupt government”. “There is loot everywhere in the state, be it sand, coal, mines and minerals. The chief minister is in jail and many leaders are being arrested on charges of corruption,” he said. Chouhan said that it has become “necessary to free Jharkhand from bad governance and reinstate the BJP’s good governance to make the state ‘Viksit’ (developed) Jharkhand”. Earlier, Chouhan and Sarma planted trees at ICAR, Namkum campus and Lichi Bagan in Ranchi’s Hatia area as part of the party’s ‘Ek ped maa ke naam’ initiative.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi is concerned about the environment. To make the earth safe for the coming generations, this initiative has been started,” Chouhan told reporters.