Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address an election rally in Chaibasa on May 5 to boost BJP’s prospects in Singhbhum constituency, which is currently held by MP and state party chief Laxman Gilua.

“Modi will hold an election rally on Tata College grounds in Chaibasa on May 5. This will be in addition to another rally to be addressed by him at Jamua for Koderma constituency on April 29. We are also planning to invite the PM for a rally in the Santhal Pargana which goes to polls on May 17,” said state BJP general secretary Deepak Prakash on Saturday. The constituency votes on May 12.

Modi had held a road show in Ranchi on April 23 and addressed an election rally in Lohardaga on April 24.

Singhbhum is witnessing a straight contest between Congress candidate and grand alliance nominee Geeta Koda and Gilua, who is also the state party president.

Sources in the party confided that Gilua was battling anti-incumbency in addition to resentment among BJP cadres.

“Apart from anti-incumbency, there is resentment against the leader within the party in West Singhbhum for giving priority to a selected group of supporters. To further compound the problems, all the gathbandhan MLAs in the constituency have put aside their personal differences and joined forces to back Koda,” a senior BJP functionary in Chaibasa said.

Singhbhum constituency has six Assembly seats - Seraikela, Majhgaon, Manoharpur, Chaibasa, Jagannathpur, Chakradharpur - and interestingly none of them has a BJP legislator.

Narendra Modi. (PTI)

The JMM had bagged five Assembly seats in the 2014 polls namely Seraikela (Champai Soren, who is also candidate from Jamshedpur parliamentary constituency), Majhgaon (Niral Purty), Manoharpur (Joba Majhi), Chaibasa (Deepak Birua) and Chakradharpur (Shashi Bhusan Samad). The Jagannathpur Assembly seat was bagged by Koda, who is also the party candidate from Singhbhum constituency.

In the last Lok Sabha elections, Gilua had polled 3,03,131 votes while Koda, then fighting on a Jai Bharat Seemanta Party ticket, had come second with 2,15,607 votes, followed by Chitrasen Sinku of Congress with 1,11,796 votes.

BJP members are wary that despite initial resistance by JMM MLAs in support of Koda after the seat was given to the Congress as part of seat sharing deal, all the party MLAs have buried their differences and are her.

“We are not much worried about Modiji’s rally. He had addressed a rally in November 2014 in the same venue for the Assembly polls, but still BJP could not win a single Assembly seat in this belt. This time both the JMM and Congress are working in unison and we will win comfortably,” said Koda.