Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making ripples on social media once again. But this time, for wrong reasons.

Social media platforms are abuzz with a recent photograph where Modi is seen sharing stage with Shashi Bhushan Mehta, the BJP candidate from Panki for the upcoming Jharkhand assembly elections, who is also accused in a murder case.

In 2012, Mehta, then the Director of Oxford Public School was arrested for the murder of his school’s warden, Suchitra Mishra, according to media report. Her body was recovered from beside a road near the Gandhi Ashram in Dhurwa. At that time, police officials had claimed that Mehta and several accomplices that he had hired for the job had killed the widow to get out of a relationship he was having with her for several years. He is currently out on bail.

Modi shared the stage with Mehta as he recently addressed a rally in Jharkhand’s Daltonganj.

Praising the state CM Raghubar Das, Modi assured that his government would continue to do better for Jharkhand.

“The BJP governments at the Centre and the state will continue to protect Jharkhand’s ‘jal’, jungle and ‘zameen’ (water, forest and land), no matter what the opposition says. The state has made efforts to curb naxalism in the state and will continue to fight against the menace,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mehta is not the only candidate with criminal accusations to his name. Another candidate fielded by the BJP for the polls, Bhanu Pratap Shahi, stands accused in a Rs. 130 crore medicine scam.

Jharkhand will go to polls in five phases from 30 November. The first phase of polling will be held on 30 November, the second phase on 6 December, the third phase on 12 December, the fourth phase on 16 December and the last phase on 20 December.

The Congress has forged an alliance with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the state to take on the BJP.