In Bihar’s New Politics, Jobs Matter More Than Identity

Analytical examination of Bihar’s 2025 election manifestos reveals how both NDA and Mahagathbandhan have moved beyond traditional caste politics toward development-oriented governance agendas, promising employment, women’s empowerment, and economic growth amid fiscal constraints.

The Changing Electoral Vocabulary

Bihar’s 2025 assembly elections present a fascinating moment in the state’s political evolution. For decades, the state that witnessed both Lalu Prasad Yadav’s rise as a champion of backward caste consciousness and Nitish Kumar’s governance-focused politics has been defined by its caste equations. The presence of dominant Yadav politics, the political mobilization of extremely backward castes, and the delicate positioning of upper castes and Dalit communities have shaped every electoral calculation. Yet something remarkable is unfolding in the campaign narratives of both the ruling National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Mahagathbandhan. While caste remains a significant voter consideration, the political discourse has shifted decisively toward concrete governance promises, employment guarantees, women’s economic participation, and infrastructure development. Both manifestos, released within days of each other in late October 2025, reveal an electorate increasingly concerned with material welfare and visible development rather than symbolic representation.​​

The NDA’s Sankalp Patra, unveiled on October 31, 2025, alongside Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP President JP Nadda, places employment generation, skill development, and industrial expansion at its core. The Mahagathbandhan’s Bihar Ka Tejashwi Pran, released by RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and allied parties, offers a competing vision centered on state-guaranteed employment, pension revival, and direct financial assistance. While these manifestos clearly reflect distinct ideological approaches to governance, they share a common recognition that Bihar’s voters, particularly the younger generation comprising 58 percent of the electorate and below 35 years of age, are increasingly responsive to promises of prosperity over appeals to identity alone.​​

Employment: The Central Promise Across Political Divides

• Employment has emerged as the paramount issue in Bihar’s political discourse, transcending traditional caste lines. The Periodic Labour Force Survey data reveal that Bihar’s unemployment rate stands at 10.4 percent as of April-June 2025, with a worker population ratio of merely 46.2 percent, indicating that nearly half the working-age population is economically inactive. This combination reflects both insufficient job opportunities and widespread withdrawal from the labor market, a phenomenon economists term the discouraged worker effect. Against this backdrop, both alliances have fashioned employment into their central electoral promise.​
• The Mahagathbandhan’s pledge is notably ambitious and immediate. It promises one government job for each family within 20 days of forming the government, enacting a law to implement an employment guarantee scheme within 20 days. This scheme directly targets the state’s 3.5 crore working-age population and acknowledges a core voter expectation that has long defined Bihar politics: the belief that government employment represents dignity and security. The manifesto also commits to regularizing all contractual workers, converting Jeevika women workers into permanent government employees drawing a 30,000 rupees monthly pay, and conducting mass recruitment drives across state departments.​​
• The NDA’s approach differs fundamentally in both scope and mechanism. It promises over one crore government jobs and employment opportunities through a market-driven strategy. The plan encompasses conducting a comprehensive skills census across the state, establishing Mega Skill Centres in every district to position Bihar as a Global Skilling Hub, and attracting private sector investment worth fifty lakh crore rupees to stimulate industrial employment. The NDA’s vision assumes that Bihar’s economic transformation requires moving beyond direct government employment to building a diversified, skill-intensive job market capable of absorbing the state’s substantial working-age population.​​
• This distinction reflects contrasting philosophies about state responsibility and economic dynamics. The Mahagathbandhan’s approach privileges the security and immediate gratification of government employment, rooted in the socialist tradition that has defined Bihar politics since the Lalu era. The NDA’s model embraces market mechanisms while positioning the state as a facilitator of industrial and technological development. Yet both recognize that employment remains non-negotiable politically. Remarkably, neither manifesto has relied on caste-specific employment promises. Instead, both frame employment as a universal entitlement, a significant departure from earlier electoral cycles when job reservations were debated along caste lines.​

Women’s Empowerment: From Welfare to Economic Participation

Women’s economic participation represents another area where both alliances have abandoned purely welfare-based approaches for more transformative agendas, though their mechanisms differ substantially. Bihar’s 3.5 crore female voters represent a decisive voting bloc, and both alliances have invested considerable thought into female-oriented promises.​

The Mahagathbandhan’s approach emphasizes direct financial support and employment security. The Mai-Bahin Maan Yojana promises 2,500 rupees monthly financial assistance to women for five years, alongside 30,000 rupees annual assistance. The manifesto also commits to absorbing all Jeevika women workers, who number in the hundreds of thousands, as permanent government employees with stable monthly income. This model reflects a redistributive approach to women’s empowerment, providing economic security through state intervention and guaranteed employment. Importantly, the scheme acknowledges that many Bihar women lack access to capital and markets for independent enterprise and thus require state support as the primary pathway to economic independence.​​

The NDA’s Lakhpati Didi initiative takes an entrepreneurial approach. The scheme aims to transform one crore Bihar women into Lakhpati Didis, earning at least one lakh rupees annually. Through the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, women entrepreneurs receive financial assistance up to two lakh rupees to establish businesses. The NDA also proposes Mission Crorepati, targeting successful women entrepreneurs for scaling their ventures into larger commercial enterprises. This vision assumes that women’s empowerment occurs through business creation, self-help group participation, financial literacy, and market integration rather than through direct state employment. The scheme reflects confidence in Bihar’s emerging entrepreneurial landscape and the capacity of micro-entrepreneurship to generate income.​​

Both approaches address a genuine gap in Bihar’s economic structure. Female participation in non-agricultural activities remains substantially lower than male participation, and agricultural dependence persists. Yet the manifestos reveal a shared conviction that women constitute not just welfare beneficiaries but active economic agents capable of driving growth. The NDA’s emphasis on entrepreneurship and the Mahagathbandhan’s commitment to converting informal workers into permanent employees both acknowledge that women’s economic independence is essential to addressing Bihar’s poverty and social indicators. Neither alliance has reverted to offering mere symbolic gestures or welfare tokens. Instead, both have positioned women’s economic transformation as central to their development narrative, a significant shift from past electoral cycles.​​

Beyond Caste: The Emergence of Development-Oriented Voting

Perhaps the most striking aspect of both manifestos is what they reveal about Bihar’s evolving electorate. For decades, political scientists examining Bihar noted the persistence of caste as the primary determinant of voting behavior despite rising literacy and media exposure. The Mandal Commission’s implementation in 1990 had created powerful caste blocs around OBC politics, particularly Yadav and Kurmi communities aligned with the RJD, while upper castes gravitated toward the BJP and JD-U. The state appeared locked into identity-based electoral competition.​

However, recent research suggests this model is transforming, if not fully supplanted. A comprehensive study examining voting patterns in Bihar’s 2019 and 2024 elections documents the persistence of caste identity alongside the growing importance of performance-based and development-oriented voting, particularly among educated voters, urban populations, and media-exposed youth. The study notes that younger voters are increasingly willing to weigh development narratives alongside identity considerations, creating what scholars term discerning partisan voters who evaluate performance, leadership capacity, and governance delivery alongside social representation.​

The manifestos reflect this electoral transformation. Neither the NDA’s Sankalp Patra nor the Mahagathbandhan’s Tejashwi Pran relies primarily on caste-specific promises or identity-based mobilization. While both maintain alliances reflecting caste considerations and both subtly signal attention to specific communities through targeted welfare schemes, the dominant electoral narratives emphasize universal promises of employment, infrastructure, education, and healthcare. The NDA’s commitment to ten industrial parks, seven new expressways, metro services in four cities, and semiconductor manufacturing hubs appeals to voters concerned with visible modernization and connectivity rather than caste representation. The Mahagathbandhan’s emphasis on employment guarantees and pension restoration addresses material security and dignity rather than caste justice, although the promises indirectly benefit communities historically excluded from government employment.​​

This shift reflects Bihar’s demographic reality. With 58 percent of voters below 35 years of age and exposure to national media, urban migration experiences, and digital connectivity, a substantial portion of the electorate evaluates political offers through lenses of personal prosperity and state capacity rather than historical caste grievances alone. The manifestos reveal that both alliances have recognized this reality and shifted their messaging accordingly, even as caste calculations continue to influence seat-sharing and alliance building behind the scenes.​

Economic Realism and Fiscal Constraints: The Feasibility Challenge

• While both manifestos promise substantial development and welfare expansion, Bihar’s fiscal and industrial reality raises serious questions about implementation feasibility. Bihar remains the poorest state in India by per capita income, with only 12.4 percent urbanization compared to the national average of 35.7 percent. The state’s fiscal situation, while recently improved, operates under significant constraints that neither manifesto adequately addresses.​
• The Mahagathbandhan’s promise of one government job for every family in Bihar represents an extraordinary commitment. With approximately 2 crore households in the state and substantial government payroll costs, the fiscal burden of implementing this scheme would overwhelm Bihar’s current budgetary capacity. Even if phased gradually, converting all contractual workers to permanent status and absorbing women workers would require substantial revenue increases. Bihar’s current fiscal position, though showing improvement with a 0.8 percent revenue surplus, does not provide sufficient surplus to finance such expansions without either imposing new taxation or reducing expenditure on capital projects and infrastructure. The manifesto’s promise to implement this within 20 days compounds the implementation challenge, as government recruitment typically requires extensive procedural compliance, examination, and institutional capacity building.​
• The NDA’s promise of one crore jobs through private sector expansion and skill development confronts different but equally significant challenges. Bihar’s manufacturing sector remains underdeveloped, contributing only 5 to 6 percent to the state’s Gross State Domestic Product, substantially below the national average. While manufacturing has recently emerged as the largest contributor to Bihar’s economy for the first time, surpassing agriculture, the sector’s relative underdevelopment reflects deeper structural issues, including inadequate infrastructure, power constraints, and limited industrial experience. Attracting fifty lakh crore rupees in investment, as promised in the manifesto, represents an extraordinary commitment that would require fundamentally transforming Bihar’s investment climate within a five-year period.​
• Recent data offers some grounds for cautious optimism regarding industrial expansion. Bihar’s gross state domestic product grew at 13.9 percent during 2024-25, higher than the national rate of 9.8 percent. Industrial sector growth has been particularly robust, with manufacturing rising 11 percent during the same period. Fixed capital investment in Bihar has increased from eight thousand crore rupees in 2013-14 to approximately 32,000 crore rupees in 2022-23. Investment proposals totaling 1.8 lakh crore rupees were signed at Bihar Business Connect 2024, and major infrastructure projects including Adani Power’s 2,400 megawatt power plant and Bihar’s selection for a nuclear power plant suggest emerging investor confidence.​​
• Yet these figures must be contextualized. Bihar’s per capita income remains substantially below other Indian states, and the rate of job creation has not kept pace with population growth. The state’s unemployment rate of 10.4 percent as of mid-2025, though showing marginal improvement from earlier levels, remains higher than the national average. The quality of education, particularly literacy and numeracy skills among school students, lags substantially behind national norms, with almost 87 percent of Grade 3 students unable to read at Grade 2 level. This educational deficit constrains the state’s capacity to rapidly upskill workers to meet industrial employment requirements.​
• Neither manifesto adequately addresses these structural constraints. The Mahagathbandhan’s promises lack detailed fiscal projections or revenue sources, while the NDA’s industrial growth assumptions rest on achieving unprecedented investment mobilization without specifying concrete policy changes necessary to attract such capital. Both manifestos present development visions rooted in reasonable aspirations but face implementation challenges stemming from Bihar’s limited fiscal capacity and structural economic limitations.​

What the Manifestos Reveal About Bihar’s Evolving Electorate

The manifestos of both alliances ultimately reveal a fundamental transformation in Bihar’s political culture. The state that produced powerful identity-based political movements and caste-driven electoral contests is witnessing the emergence of an electorate increasingly concerned with material well-being, governance capacity, and visible development. This does not mean caste has ceased to matter. Caste identity continues to shape voting behavior, community trust, and political alliance building. Rather, caste is increasingly mediated through evaluations of governance performance, development delivery, and economic opportunity.​

The prominence of employment promises in both manifestos reflects this shift. Employment represents both a material need, addressing Bihar’s substantial joblessness, and a symbol of dignity and social inclusion transcending caste boundaries. Remarkably, both alliances frame employment as a universal entitlement rather than a caste-specific benefit, indicating recognition that voters of diverse backgrounds share common economic aspirations. Similarly, the emphasis on infrastructure development, industrial expansion, and educational quality appeals to voters across caste groups who have experienced migration-driven exposure to more developed Indian states and aspire to similar opportunities in their home state.​​

The manifestos also suggest that Bihar’s political culture may be slowly transitioning from a model emphasizing redistributive welfare and social justice symbolism toward one incorporating developmental concerns and market mechanisms. The NDA’s focus on skill development, private sector job creation, and industrial entrepreneurship reflects a modernizing vision in contrast to the RJD’s historical emphasis on direct welfare provision. Yet the Mahagathbandhan’s retention of employment guarantees and welfare schemes, combined with promises of infrastructure and education expansion, suggests that state-led development models retain powerful appeal among Bihar’s voters, particularly those with limited access to market-based opportunities.​

Conclusion: The Future of Bihar’s Politics

Bihar’s 2025 election manifestos demonstrate that the state’s political discourse has fundamentally shifted. While caste, religion, and identity considerations continue to influence voter behavior and political alliance building, the dominant electoral narratives have moved decisively toward governance, development, and economic opportunity. Both the NDA’s Sankalp Patra and the Mahagathbandhan’s Bihar Ka Tejashwi Pran represent competing visions of how to address Bihar’s persistent underdevelopment and joblessness, but they share a common recognition that voters increasingly demand concrete improvements in material circumstances.​

The feasibility of these ambitious promises remains uncertain, constrained by Bihar’s fiscal limitations and structural economic challenges. Yet the very fact that both alliances have committed to such promises reflects evolving voter expectations. Bihar’s electorate, increasingly younger, more educated, and exposed to national media and urban migration experiences, has signaled that identity politics alone no longer suffices. Governance performance, employment creation, and visible development have become decisive political currencies. The state that produced powerful movements for caste justice and social equality is now demanding that political leaders translate those commitments into jobs, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure visible in daily life.​

This evolution does not represent the disappearance of caste from Bihar politics but rather its transformation into one consideration among several in voter calculus. The emerging political economy of Bihar suggests that both alliances will face electoral consequences not merely from caste miscalculations but from failures to deliver on development promises. This represents a significant shift from earlier electoral cycles and contains both opportunities and risks for Bihar’s future. Success in fulfilling development promises could accelerate the state’s transition to prosperity-based political competition, while failure could breed disillusionment and renewed retreat to identity-based electoral mobilization. The state stands at a crossroads where the electorate has clearly indicated its preference for development-oriented governance, but political leaders now face the substantial challenge of translating ambitious manifestos into institutional reality.

Source: In Bihar manifesto, how NDA blends outreach to poor with aspirational pitch, addresses jobs issue & Bihar Ka Tejashwi Pran’: INDIA bloc releases poll manifesto, promises to ‘get state back on track

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