Bihar assembly elections are fast approaching and the Mahagathbandhan of Congress, RJD, and left parties have finally released their manifesto that has ostensibly made tall and exaggerated promises of bringing paradise in the Eastern state of the country.
Congress spokesperson and leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said that if they win the polls, under the leadership of the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, the alliance will pass a bill in the first Vidhan Sabha session itself to scrap the three anti-farm laws cleared by the Centre last month.
This is the same Congress whose Madhya Pradesh fiasco is still fresh in the public memory. Last year in September, Congress heavyweight in Madhya Pradesh, Digvijay Singh’s younger brother Lakshman Singh had conceded that Rahul Gandhi’s fraud promises of farm-loan waivers were nothing but a mere gimmick to con poor farmers to vote for Congress in Madhya Pradesh.
Govind Singh, the General Administration Minister in Kamal Nath’s cabinet had apologised while speaking at a government function, “Forgive us, we couldn’t fulfil our leader Rahul Gandhi’s promise to waive off farmers’ loan up to ₹2 lakh withing ten days of forming government in the state.”
Congress and pro-farmer ideals are as distant concept as anything could be, henceforth, it would be a hyperbole to expect from Congress that it has the best interests of farmers in mind when it wants to scrap the farm bill which has received a lot of backing amongst the farmers of the country after the pseudo-protests of the oppositions parties subsided.
DNA tested Tejashwi Yadav
“I am a pure Bihari. My DNA is pure. As I have announced that if we come to power, we will give jobs to 10 lakh youth in the first cabinet,” said a deluded yet confident Tejashwi Yadav during the manifesto release.
Yadav also claimed that at least 60 scams took place during the NDA government in Bihar under the leadership of chief minister and Janata Dal(United) leader Nitish Kumar without providing corroborating facts for even one.
Tejashwi’s father Lalu Yadav had single-handedly brought the fortunes of Bihar down with his inefficient and corruption-filled governance. His dreaded and horrible fifteen-year rule in Bihar is often termed as Jungle Raj, which simply implies lawlessness. Bihar lived in the tyranny of Lalu from 1990 to 2005, as he and his wife Rabri Devi took turns to stomp the future of Biharis.
State-backed killings, kidnapping rackets, the Bahubali culture—all were pretty common for Bihar under Lalu’s tumultuous dictatorship. Lalu’s vision from the starting was very clear- to satisfy his vote base by using all the dirty tricks available in the book whether it be through appeasement politics or instilling fear in the people.
The RJD supremo has been sent to prison for all his many revolutionary deeds but has been vacationing in Patna’s RIMS hospital for the last one year. Out of the many scams that he committed or has been accused of, the Bihar Fodder scam duped the exchequer of whooping ₹9.4 billion. So coming from Tejashwi, it sounded a bit hollow.
The unholy nexus of Congress and RJD further promised to allocate 12% of the budget to education, adding that there will be one teacher for every 30 students in primary schools and one teacher for 35 students in secondary schools.
Teachers for extracurricular activities like art, computer and sports will also be appointed. Under the ‘Smart Gram Yojana’, a clinic with a doctor and nurse will be established in every panchayat, according to the manifesto.
Although Nitish Kumar has slowed down in the latter part of his political career and Bihar’s pace of development has halted, he has still done much more commendable work than what his predecessor could.
On the education front, Nitish Kumar in an election rally had said that when he came to power, over 12 per cent children were out of school. “Today it’s zero as I ensured everyone goes to school. When I came to power, the number of girls appearing in Class X exams was just 1.7 lakh. In the last metric exams, the number of girls outnumbered the boys,” he said.
Kumar further claimed that when he came to power only 18 per cent of the population received immunisation. “Today it is 80 per cent and mortality rates (due to various diseases) have dropped,” he added.
Asaduddin Owaisi led AIMIM, which the self-attested secular parties of ‘Mahagathbandhan’ call B-team of BJP, has stepped into Bihar assembly election to disturb the equations of the secular alliance.
Read: Owaisi is in Bihar and he is going to make sure Lalu and Congress get a crushing defeat in election
Even if Owaisi can not make a significant mark as far as the number of seats is concerned, he can surely prove crucial in making the RJD-Congress alliance lose badly given the fact that his party would bifurcate the Muslim votes which till now went to the Congress or Lalu’s party. Especially in the Seemanchal region, where the Muslims are in majority in many pockets, Owaisi can ensure NDA’s victory by division in the Muslim votes.
Therefore, the suicidal node masquerading as a manifesto that the Grand Alliance has released will not lead to any fruition, albeit, it could just be the final nail in the coffin for the alliance and its overambitious dreams. Barring any Houdini act, the Mahagathbandhan is surely doomed to fail.