Kolkata: Three Union ministers, including railway minister Suresh Prabhu and two chief ministers of the BJP- ruled neighbouring states of Bengal, will visit the state in June to campaign for the Central government’s welfare schemes to strengthen the party’s rural votebank ahead of the panchayat elections next year.

They will attend Modi Fest, an event to be organised by the state BJP in different districts. Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das will inaugurate the programme to be held from June 2 to 4 at Burdwan Town Hall ground and Durgapur in Burdwan. Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh will inaugurate the event at Howrah Sarat Sadan. On June 9, Mr Prabhu will inaugurate the event in West Midnapore’s Kharagpur, the Assembly constituency of BJP MLA Dilip Ghosh, who is also the state BJP president.

On June 16, another Jharkhand minister Nilkanth Singh will inaugurate the programme in Purulia. In the next two days, two Union ministers, Santosh Gangwar and Chandreshwar Prasad Singh, will inaugurate the event in Hooghly and Alipurduar respectively. Mr Ghosh said, “Our aim is to reach the common people through the event.”