The Central Government has come to a standstill with nearly half of the Cabinet colleagues of Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigning in Bihar for the upcoming Assembly polls, which are being seen as a close contest between the ruling NDA and the regional alliance.
Besides PM Narendra Modi, who will remain in Bihar during his political rallies, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Foreign Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Steel Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Health Minister JP Nadda, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, HRD Minister Smriti Irani, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Chemical and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar, Food and Consumers Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, and MSME Minister Kalraj Mishra are camping in the state.
Apart from Cabinet Ministers, the ten Ministers of State, including four MoS with independent charge have been deployed to win the crucial state poll. The Ministers of state include Power Minister Piyush Goyal, Skill Development Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Textile Minister Santosh Gangwar, MoS Rural Development Ram Kripal Yadav, MoS Railways Manoj Sinha, MoS HRD Upendra Kushwaha, MoS Finance Jayant Sinha, and MoS Food Processing Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti.
Central Ministers Radha Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ananth Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan, Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, and Ram Kripal Yadav have been deployed on permanent basis till the last phase of the polls.
Prime Minister Modi, who started his campaign with four rallies on Thursday, will stay in Patna for two days to have a real-time assessment of the electioneering process.