Patna: A witty remark by Opposition’s chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav has created a storm in Bihar politics. The three-phase polling starts from Wednesday (October 28).
“You will get good wives only when you have government jobs” said Yadav and it has left a huge impact on the youth class who are now crowding his every rally. He is the lone leader whose election rallies are drawing huge crowds right now although it’s a matter of debate as to if the crowd translates into votes.
As such, the issue of unemployment is something which has impacted youths across castes, creeds and communities. Now, Yadav has sought to apply balm on their green wounds by promising to give one million jobs to the youths once his party comes to power. He even mentioned this promise in his party manifesto with the clear mention that his first Cabinet meeting will be about filling one million vacant government posts, leaving the young voters in raptures.
Reading the mood of the youths who faced huge job losses as a result of Corona-induced lockdown and had to ultimately return homes with their families, Yadav has been raising the issue of unemployment at his every rally. As per an estimate, more than three million migrants—quite good number of them being youths—have returned home after lockdown with no job at hand.
“You will get pretty wives only when you get government jobs and that is possible when the Grand Alliance comes to power,” Yadav tells the crowds attending his rally. He adds that the good and permanent jobs would also help them go on sightseeing tours with their wives and take their parents on pilgrimage.
Good education
He also says the earnings from the jobs will enable them to focus on their health and provide good education to their children in reputed education institutions.
A very interesting thing about Yadav is that it is mostly the young voters who have been attending his rallies in large numbers. This becomes significant given the fact that the young voters constitute more than 50 per cent of the total over 72.9 million voters in Bihar.
According to an official data received from Election Commission, the total number of voters is 714,488 in the age-group of 18-19; 16,054,675 in the age-group of 20-29 and 19,865,475 in the age-group of 30-39. The number of the voters in these three age-groups alone comes to 36,634,638 which are more than 50 percent of the total voters in Bihar.
“Tejashwi has raised the perfect issue and it has been well received by the young voters since growing unemployment is a major issue now, especially after lockdown,” commented former director of Patna-based AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies, DM Diwakar.
The impact of Yadav’s job offer is that even the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) had been forced to rework its poll strategy with the youth community showing solidarity with the former. Initially, the entire NDA including the BJP had mocked Yadav’s job offer asking from where he would bring huge funds to pay salary to the staffs but now with unemployment becoming the major poll issue, the BJP itself has promised to provide for 1.9 million jobs to the people of Bihar.
