Ranchi: Five sitting lawmakers two each from Congress, one  Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and one independent joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday. Former president of the Jharkhand Congress and lawmaker of Lohardaga, Sukhdeo Bhagat, four-term congressman MLA Manoj Yadav, JMM's Kunal Sarangi and JP Patel, and Bhawnathpur MLA Bhanu Pratap Shahi joined the BJP at Ranchi headquarters.

Chief Minister Raghubar Das said other party leaders are joining the BJP motivated by development and nationalism policies. Looking through the mandate that people gave in 2014 and 2019, it is clear that they opposed voting bank and nepotism policies. We preferred the growth and patriotism policies adopted by the BJP headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, president of the BJP. These leaders joined us to put Jharkhand on the road of growth, "Das said. In addition to the MLAs, Senior Congress member and former police officer Arun Oraon , former top cop DK Pandey and retired IAS officer Suchitra Sinha joined the BJP.