After NDA’s cash doles to women, Tejashwi’s “one job per family” vow shows how numbers never matter in electoral politics.
Bihar’s politics has once again turned into a marketplace of promises, where economics bows to electoral ambition. As the NDA flaunts its women-centric doles and Tejashwi Yadav counters with an impossible “job for every family” vow, governance gives way to gimmickry. Writes Vipin Pubby.
ALL EYES ARE on the outcome of the assembly elections in Bihar, the third most populous state in the country, with rival parties doling out freebies or making promises they would find almost impossible to deliver.
The latest such promise has been made by chief-ministerial aspirant Tejashwi Yadav, who heads the Rashtriya Janata Dal and is leading the mahagathbandhan in the state. He has made an outrageous claim that, if elected Chief Minister, he would bring a law to ensure at least one government job for each family in the state.
Though his educational qualifications are modest, just as his father’s were, he could have asked some of his aides about the implications if, by any chance, he were to become the Chief Minister.
As per the caste survey conducted by the state government just two years ago, there are 27.6 million households in the state. Currently, only two million residents of Bihar have government jobs, which also include central government jobs.
Thus, Tejashwi Yadav, if he were to become the Chief Minister, would have to create over 25 million new government jobs!
Courtesy: South First
Considering that Bihar’s budget spending on salaries during the current financial year is pegged at ₹54,697 crore, the expenditure would mount to ₹7,00,000 crore if Yadav were to implement his promise.
This amount is double the total budgeted spending of Bihar this year, which is roughly ₹3,17,000 crore. Only the andhbhakts of Yadav would believe what their leader has promised.
There is another aspect of the claim that also reflects on the conditions prevailing in the state. Unless Yadav is talking about menial government jobs, he would find it difficult to locate enough qualified or skilled workers.
As per an official survey, the share of graduates in the age group of 18–35 years registered for jobs is merely 13 per cent. The percentage is even lower among Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes. Less than half of the working-age population is actively looking for jobs. So, the state has neither the money nor the skilled workforce for such a bizarre promise.
But, to be sure, more such promises will be doled out to the electorate of Bihar in the days to come. After the various political parties sort out their seat-sharing formulas, they will get down to making promises to allure the voters.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had taken the lead by doling out ₹10,000 each to 25 lakh women under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana to start small businesses.
This has cost the state exchequer ₹2,500 crore. Nitish Kumar has promised an additional ₹2 lakh to successful entrepreneurs if he is returned to power.
After a 15-year rule by Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi, whose tenure was riddled with scams like the chara ghotala, Nitish Kumar has been at the helm for the last 20 years, marked by his frequent political somersaults.
Their combined rule over three and a half decades has failed to pull the state and its vast majority of people out of poverty and poor living conditions.
Bihar has the dubious distinction of being the state with the highest migration rate, with lakhs of its youth seeking fortunes in other parts of the country by undertaking menial jobs as industrial and agricultural labourers, security guards, delivery boys, and other such occupations.
That’s not a surprise, because the manufacturing sector in the state has never picked up. The latest Annual Survey of Factories lists just 3,386 factories in the state — barely 1.3 per cent of all factories in the country. Bihar’s share in the total number of workers employed in factories is merely 0.75 per cent.
As per NITI Aayog figures, Bihar has the highest proportion of multi-dimensionally poor people in the country. Basic facilities like education and health remain pathetic. Its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) during the last financial year was merely 5 per cent of the country’s GDP.
Politicians who have ruled the state over the decades need to share the blame for the sorry state of affairs in Bihar. It is time for its people to come out and vote for development rather than on the basis of caste and creed.
It remains to be seen whether the two-year-long groundwork done by Prashant Kishor, whose Jan Suraaj Party is contesting elections on the plank of development, can bear Bihar deserves a break from the past. 
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Vipin Pubby
The author, a freelance journalist, is a former Resident Editor of Indian Express, Chandigarh, and reported on the political developments in Jammu and Kashmir, North-Eastern India, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab in his long, illustrious career.
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