Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das Monday criticised the Congress for fielding a "borrowed player" Kirti Azad from the Dhanbad Lok Sabha seat and claimed people of the coal city have always supported local leaders.

After accompanying party candidate and sitting MP P N Singh during his nomination filing, Das while addressing an election rally accused the Congress of borrowing a candidate, ignoring its (Congresss) senior local leaders, who have served the party for a long time.

People of Dhanbad have always supported local leaders in elections and sent back outsider candidates. This time too Dhanbad people will send the borrowed player of Congress packing in the (May 12) elections, Das said.

Cricketer-turned-politician Azad, who switched sides to Congress from the BJP, has been fielded from Dhanbad as his traditional seat Dharbanga in Bihar went to Lalu Prasad's RJD.

Targeting the Mahagathbandhan of the Congress, the JMM, the RJD and the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), Das said such alliances against BJP had failed in 2014.

They (opposition parties) have come together only for power, and the people understand it and will discard them again, he said.

Saying that the NDA is fighting the elections on issues of nationalism and development, Das said, I appeal to the people to compare performances between two governments (Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi regimes); what Congress could not do in 70 years, Narendra Modi government has done only in five years.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)