Ahead of the first phase of the Bihar Assembly Elections, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday morning released the BJP's election manifesto in Patna. As per a post on the BJP's social media handle, the manifesto will bear 11 key resolutions to create an aatma nirbhar Bihar. As their manifesto puts it, the party has 1 laksha, five sutra, and 11 sankalp.
"Bihar is one state where all citizens are politically sensitive & well informed. They know & understand the promises a party makes. If anyone raises questions on our manifesto, we can answer them with confidence as we fulfil what we promised," Sitharaman was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The goal, the BJP manifesto explains, is to make Bihar self reliant. This, the manifesto explains will be done through five developmental formulas. These are, the development of the village, city, industry, education and agriculture.
While the NDA had, in the past questioned Tejashwi Yadav's promise to provide 10 lakh jobs to the people of Bihar, the BJP manifesto has gone a step further, offerring nearly double the number. The BJP has promised 19 lakh jobs to the people of Bihar.
The BJP has promised to provide free COVID-19 vaccines to every person in the state if they are elected to power. "As soon as the COVID-19 vaccine will be available for production at a mass scale, every person in Bihar will get free vaccination. This is the first promise mentioned in our poll manifesto," Sitharaman said at the launch.
The BJP has also pledged to make education more easily accessible, writing in its manifesto that it will ensure that all medical, engineering and technical institutes also teach courses in Hindi. Not only that, the party has also announced its intent to appoint lakhs of new teachers in educational institutions. Their third resolution, as put forth by the BJP Bihar handle is that in the coming one year, all types of schools, universities and institutes of higher education will appoint three lakh new teachers.
Promising to develop Bihar into an IT hub in the future, the manifesto promised to provide more than 5 lakh employment opportunities in next 5 years.
"The NDA government has brought light to the lives of 1.20 crore women through 10 lakh groups in Bihar. We have now pledged to make one crore women self-reliant through self-help groups and micro finance institutions," the manifesto promised.
The party has also promised to provide jobs to a total of one lakh people in the state in the health department. This includes 10 thousand doctors and 50 thousand paramedical personnel. At the same time, the Prime Minister will ensure the operation of the second 'AIIMS' given to Darbhanga, Bihar by 2024, the manifesto vows.
"We have pledged that after taking forward the policy of strong agriculture, prosperous farmer, after paddy and wheat, now pulses will also be procured at the prescribed rates of MSP," the seventh point in the manifesto says.
The manifesto also promises to ramp up the construction of houses in the state.
The BJP says that it will encourage co-operatives and COMFED (Bihar State Milk Co-Operative Federation Ltd). "15 new processing industries based on private and COMFED will be created in 2 years by providing ease for private investment in processing sector," it adds.
Point 10 on the manifesto talks about expanding the fisheries scheme. "By furthering the fisheries scheme, our government will make the state the number one state in the country in the production of freshwater fish in the next 2 years," it adds.
The party has also decided to add 1000 new FPOs in Bihar to the develop the supply chain of special crop products like maize, fruits, vegetable, chuda, makhana, paan, masala, honey, mentha, medicinal plants across the state. "This will create 10 lakh employment opportunities in the state," the manifesto adds.
