RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav Thursday promised to enact a law, if voted to power in next month's Assembly elections, to ensure each family in the state has a government job. Tejashwi, the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, said the proposed Act would be brought “within 20 days of formation of the new government”. “My first announcement after the election notification is that whichever Bihar family has no government job, we will bring a new law to ensure one. They (the NDA) have not given any jobs, but once we form the government, we will enact a new law within 20 days and ensure that all such families get a government job within 20 months of our government’s formation,” he said at a press conference here. "I had promised government jobs in the last Assembly polls as well. During my brief stint in power, five lakh jobs were provided. You can imagine what could be possible had I got a five-year term," said the 35-year-old. While leaders of the ruling NDA alliance termed the promise “impractical and hypothetical”, they conceded it could serve as an effective counter to the recent slew of sops announced by the Nitish Kumar government. Economists said Tejashwi would find it difficult to fulfil the promise. JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said the promise had no “legal validity.” “The state government has no right to bring such an ordinance, and there is no right-to-job provision in the Constitution. What Tejashwi said is nothing more than a political slogan,” he said. The RJD leader's announcement draws inspiration from his party's performance in the Assembly elections of 2020, when the promise of 10 lakh jobs was one of the Opposition Mahagathbandhan’s (Grand Alliance) key poll planks. The RJD emerged as the single-largest party, winning 75 of the state’s 243 seats, but the alliance fell short of the majority mark. Since Tejashwi made jobs a poll issue for the 2020 polls, the issue continued to dominate the political discourse of the state even after Nitish quit the Mahagathbandhan to join forces with the NDA in January 2024. Months later in October, the Nitish-led NDA government issued a notification to fill up 2.8 lakh government vacancies. Many perceived the move as a bid to counter Tejashwi and push the narrative that the Nitish-led NDA government had given 5 lakh jobs in the current tenure and 10 lakh since he first assumed power in 2005. “We saw how the Mahagathbandhan’s 2020 campaign peaked with Tejashwi’s promise of providing 10 lakh jobs. We were lucky to get a simple majority of 125 seats, as the vote difference between us and the Mahagathbandhan was just 12,000,” said a BJP leader. Though there is no official data on the total number of government jobs in Bihar, government sources said there were 26.5 lakh government employees in the state. As per the 2023 caste survey, there are 2.76 crore families in Bihar, whose overall population is around 13 crore. Government jobs remain highly sought after. Recently, more than 10 lakh applicants competed for around 930 posts of education development officers at the block level. In the last three recruitment examinations for government schoolteachers held in the past four years, the government cumulatively received more than 20 lakh applications for around four lakh vacancies. Since November 2005, when Nitish Kumar first assumed the chief minister’s chair (barring the nine months when Jitan Ram Manjhi held the post), the state government has provided around 12 lakh government jobs. “There could be a good number of opportunities in the health and education sectors, but they require expertise and specialised training. Even if we don’t account for the cost of employing 2.5 crore people, what kind of jobs can the state government offer, especially when less than 7% of the state’s population are graduates?” said Surya Bhushan, professor at the Development Management Institute in Patna.
