Pradhan meets Nitish, BJP forms poll campaign panel

Patna: BJP on Sunday intensified its preparations for the assembly election. Soon after the BJP formed its 45-member poll campaign committee, the party’s election in charge and Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, along with JD(U) national working president Sanjay Kumar Jha and deputy CM Samrat Choudhary met CM Nitish Kumar before leaving for Delhi.Though it was termed a courtesy call by Pradhan, his meeting with Nitish assumes significance as the formal talks on seat-sharing in the NDA comprising BJP, JD(U), LJP (RV), RLM and HAM(S) are likely to be completed before the Election Commission announces the poll dates, probably by the end of Oct first week.Pradhan, who was named the BJP election in charge on Sept 25, attended the crucial party meeting chaired by Union home minister Amit Shah in Patna the next day to discuss the party’s election agenda and preparations. He also formally launched the BJP campaign in Patna on Saturday.Union minister Shah has set a target for the NDA to win 160+ seats in the assembly elections to be held in Nov. He also asked the BJP workers in Araria to increase the vote share by 10% to achieve the goal.BJP poll campaign panel: The BJP poll campaign panel includes state president Dilip Jaiswal, Samrat Choudhary, Vijay Kumar Sinha, Giriraj Singh, Radha Mohan Singh, Nityanand Rai, Mangal Pandey, Gopal Narayan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Rajbhushan Nishad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Satish Chandra Dubey, Sanjay Jaiswal, Prem Kumar, Renu Devi, Janak Ram, Hari Sahni, Rituraj Sinha, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, Rama Devi, Pradeep Kumar Singh, Janardan Singh Sigriwal, Gopalji Thakur, Ashok Yadav, Vivek Thakur, Shambhu Sharan Patel, Dharmashila Gupta, Krishna Kumar Rishi, Anil Sharma (Bakhtiyarpur), Krishna Kumar Mantu, Ram Narayan Mandal, Rajendra Prasad Gupta, Virendra Chaudhary, Ashok Agarwal, Lalmohan Gupta, Baby Kumari, Sheela Prajapati, U P Sharma, Rajendra Chaupal, Upendra Prasad, Ram Kumar Rai, Vishwamohan Kumar and Lallu Vasaki.