Five Jharkhand ministers belonging to BJP and JD(U) submitted their resignation letters to Governor M O H Farooq, who today forwarded these to Chief Minister Shibu Soren.

Tourism Minister Sudha Choudhary (JD-U) submitted her resignation letter today while the four other ministers -- Deputy Chief Minister Raghuvar Das, Food Processing Minister Barkuanr Gagrai, Transport Minister Nilkanth Singh Munda and Health Minister Baijnath Ram (all BJP) -- sent their letters to Farooq yesterday, Raj Bhavan sources said.

They said the letters have been forwarded to the Chief Minister so that these could come to the Governor through the right channel.

Soren, whose JMM-NDA coalition has been reduced to minority after BJP withdrew support to the alliance on May 24, has been asked to prove his majority on the floor of the Jharkhand Assembly by May 31.

The Governor had asked Das, who is also the Leader of BJP Legislature Party, about the signatures of other BJP MLAs when he had met Farooq to hand over the letter withdrawing support to the Soren government.

Both BJP and JMM have 18 MLAs each in the 82-member Assembly. Frustrated over JMM backtracking on its power-sharing agreement, the BJP withdrew support when a defiant Soren asserted that he would continue as the chief minister and was in touch with Congress.

Das had assured Farooq that he would submit a letter carrying signatures of all BJP MLAs by May 25, but Raj Bhavan sources said signatures of all party MLAs have not been received so far.

BJP sources said signatures of other MLAs were being collected as many of them were out of station.