Even after facing a major jolt after its principal spokesperson Praveen Prabhakar from Jharkhand resigned from the party amid the ongoing polls, the BJP is confident of making the government in the state.

Union Minister Rajnath Singh, addressing a public meeting at Adityapur in Seraikela-Kharswan district, said he had a discussion with a cross-section of people as well as political analysts after the first phase of the polls on Saturday.

“The feedback indicated that the BJP is going to win 9 to 10 seats out of the 13 constituencies that went to polls in the first phase yesterday… We will form a majority government in the state,” the Union Defence Minister said.

Singh said that the recent developments like abrogating Article 370, making ‘triple talaq’ punishable under law, and announcing a “grand” Ram temple in Ayodhya, following the Supreme Court verdict, were working in favour of the party that was gaining support of the people.

Speaking about the criticism the party received from the Opposition the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Singh said, “Is it not our responsibility to identify infiltrators living in the country? We will neither accept them as Indian nationals nor grant them citizenship.”

Addressing the ongoing economic slowdown, the minister assured that India will become a USD 5-trillion economy by 2025.

Meanwhile, addressing another rally, Singh praised Modi saying, “While former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee created Jharkhand, PM Narendra Modi has nourished it.”

Singh also referred to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s phrase ‘hum do, hamare do’ about the saffron party, when two of its MPs won the Lok Sabha elections in 1984.

“From two seats, the BJP is the only non-Congress political party to achieve a clear majority in the Parliamentary polls after Independence, and it has also formed governments in majority of the states,” he said.