IN BIHAR, THE ELECTION MANIFESTOS TELL TWO STORIES
New Delhi, Nov 02, 2025 : The campaign for the Bihar Assembly Elections is underway. Both the NDA and the RJD-led opposition have released their manifestos. Beyond the intricate comparison, narrowed down to every single promise, the manifestos are starkly different. The NDA manifesto focuses on enablement through welfare, infrastructure, skilling, education, and ease of credit. Meanwhile, the anti-incumbents have made it about a single agenda-government employment.
Over the last ten years, the Modi Government has introduced unprecedented welfare programs at scale in the state. Citizens, especially women, have been encompassed by several welfare schemes. From toilets to tap water, from houses to gas cylinders, from bank accounts to access to credit, and from self-help groups to Lakhpati Didis, the focus of the government has been to enable women, and thus the entire family.
The welfare push has been coupled with an infrastructure push in Bihar by the Centre. From new Vande Bharat routes to highways, and from upgraded airports to new flight routes, the infrastructure push is further enabling economic avenues for the people of Bihar.
The NDA manifesto aims to capitalise on the work done in the last ten years. Central to the promises is youth empowerment, with a pledge to create 1 crore government jobs and employment opportunities, supported by a skill census to position Bihar as a global skilling hub. Mega Skill Centres in every district and Centres of Excellence for sports will further bolster this initiative. While the vacancies in the government will be filled, additional avenues of employment will be created in the private sector. This is where skill development becomes critical.
Economic growth features prominently, with plans for 10 new industrial parks per district, 100 MSME parks, and over 50,000 cottage industries. The manifesto also envisions a defence corridor and semiconductor manufacturing parks to attract global investments.
Women’s empowerment is a key focus, aiming to enable 1 crore women to become ‘Lakhpati Didi’, earning at least Rs. One Lakh annually, alongside ‘Mission Crorepati’ for turning entrepreneurs into crorepatis. Financial aid of up to Rs. Two Lakh under the Chief Minister’s Women’s Employment Scheme will support this. Thus, the focus is on ensuring financial aid for businesses to take off, not helicopter cash.
Agriculture receives significant attention, with Kisan Samman Nidhi assistance rising from Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 9,000 annually, doubled support for fishermen to Rs. 9,000, and MSP guarantees for all crops. A Rs. One Lakh Crore investment in farm infrastructure and the Bihar Milk Mission aims to boost rural economies.
Infrastructure development is earmarked for Rs. 9 Lakh Crore, including seven new expressways, 3,600 km of modernised railways, metro services in Patna, Gaya, Purnia, and Bhagalpur, and international airports in key cities. Education promises free KG-to-PG schooling for poor families, residential schools for SC/ST students, and an Education City with global university campuses. Healthcare will see medical colleges in every district and a world-class medical city.
The overall focus of the NDA manifesto is on enablement. From education to skilling, from creating job creators to self-reliant communities through ease of credit. For Bihar, a majority of the legacy issues have already been addressed through the welfare and infrastructure push of the last ten years. With the new promised programmes, the government now wants to ensure double-digit sustainable growth for the state, aligning with fiscal feasibility.
Unlike in 2015, the primary opposition party in Bihar is relying on the Grand Old Party of India to upstage the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government in the state. At the beginning of their manifesto, the alliance has promised to usher in a law, within the first twenty days of the government formation, that will guarantee a government job for every household. The manifesto does not leave any room for ambiguity. A government job for every household is what is being promised. Clear as crystal.
The opposition in Bihar is playing to the gallery of conventional aspirations. The prospect of a government job entices many in the state, and therefore, a promise in the election manifesto may drive conversation, but the feasibility remains a problem. A majority government has the right to formulate a law guaranteeing the citizens anything, even a house in space, but that does not make it feasible. Rhetoric, at some point, has to meet reality. In the opposition’s manifesto, the bridge between rhetoric and reality does not exist, cannot exist, will not exist.
The numbers confirm the ridiculousness of the rhetoric. A conservative figure suggests that Bihar has 2.5 Crore households without a government job. Assuming a government job that pays Rs. 20,000 (conservative) as a monthly salary (without factoring in the other social security benefits and monetary perks), this results in an expenditure of Rs. 240,000 for 2.8 Crore employees.
Each year, this will cost the Bihar state government Rs. 6 Lakh Crore each year, more than Rs. 30 Lakh Crore across five years. The only problem; Bihar’s annual budget for 2025-26 put the expenditure at Rs. 3 Lakh Crore (rounded off). Unless the money grows on the trees, this cannot happen.
The sectoral expenditure tells another story. In 2025-26, Bihar’s budget estimates put the salary expenditure at Rs. 51,000 Crore, pension expenditure at Rs. 34,000 Crore, and the interest payments at Rs. 23,000 Crore. The salary expenditure, if the government job promise is fulfilled, with alone be 12 times the current salary expenditure.
The quantification with respect to the sectoral expenditure of the state budget further exposes the fallacy of the promise. The figure of Rs. 6 Lakh Crore calculated is 75 times the budget for agriculture and allied activities, 68 times the budget for roads and bridges, 65 times the budget for irrigation and flood control, 55 times the budget for urban development, 45 times the energy budget, 41 times the police budget, and 39 times the budget for social welfare and nutrition.
Rs. 6 Lakh Crore, the calculated cost of the government job promise, is 31 times what the state government spends on health and family welfare, 20 times the rural development expenditure, and almost 10 times the budget for education, sports, arts, and culture. Hypothetically, even if the government were to stop all its sectoral expenditure for one year, the promise cannot be fulfilled. The math is off the charts.
A discussion on the size of the government is also warranted. If the anti-incumbents walk the talk, the size of the government will be more than 2.5 Crore employees. Compare this to Uttar Pradesh with 17.8 Lakh employees, Tamil Nadu with 9 Lakh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and West Bengal with 8 Lakh each. Since 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has advocated the idea of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’. The opposition, meanwhile, is advocating for ‘Maxed out Government’.
A comparison with key ministries further exposes the farce. The Indian Railways, one of the largest employers in the world, has 12.5 Lakh employees on its rolls. In Bihar, a government 20 times bigger is being proposed through this promise. Collectively, India’s Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and Public Sector Banks (PSBs) have around 25 Lakh employees, one-tenth of the proposed number in Bihar.
The other way to look at this promise is the License Raj. What if the new state government decides to bring back the pre-liberalisation days and becomes a stakeholder in the private enterprises, and thus, terms every job created by the private sector as a government job? Will the state government then dictate hiring practices and wages? Is this the beginning of a new economic trajectory that certain political parties wish to pursue?
While the NDA is promising to further enable the people of Bihar, putting them on the track of double-digit growth, capitalising on the work done in the last ten years, the opposition wants to go back to the conventional method of employment. For the people of Bihar, the choice could not be starker. Do they wish to learn how to catch a fish, or want a fish to be doled out to them every single day, is what they have to choose between.
In the larger scheme of things, political entities must be responsible when it comes to making promises to the voters. To sway innocent and gullible voters with promises that do not meet the fiscal and feasibility litmus test is unfair to the institution of elections. Every five years, a state celebrates its democratic framework through a festival called elections. Therefore, one hopes that this festive mood is not dampened by promises that borderline on insulting the electorate. No castles in the air, please.