New Delhi: The opposition INDIA bloc on Tuesday (October 28) released its joint manifesto for the upcoming Bihar assembly elections with promises focusing on employment, youth, women, empowering backward castes and communities, and bringing “positive change” to the state.The promises include those announced earlier, such as a government job for every family in the state, Rs 2,500 as monthly allowance for women, free electricity up to 200 units.Other promises include ending paper leaks and irregularities in the conduct of recruitment examinations, bringing in a domicile policy for workers from the state, enacting legislation to protect the extremely backward from atrocities, setting up IT parks and special economic zones (SEZs), as well as not implementing the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025.The manifesto document, called “Bihar ka Tejashwi pran”, was released at a joint press conference by leaders of the Mahagathbandhan parties including the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation [CPI(ML)], the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) and the Indian Inclusive Party.At the press conference, the INDIA bloc’s chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of reducing chief minister Nitish Kumar to a “puppet” and only “using his face” for the elections.“The BJP and the corrupt authorities have made Nitish Kumar into a puppet. We are all seeing how the BJP is using his face … Amit Shah has already confirmed that Nitish Kumar will not become the chief minister of Bihar. He has clearly said that the MLAs will decide who will be the NDA’s chief minister,” he said.“Even earlier we have said that the BJP is using Nitish Kumar and won’t make him chief minister after the elections. And this has been proven now. We have already announced our chief ministerial face before the public, but even now the NDA has not done a single press conference to officially announce its chief ministerial face.”The INDIA bloc had last week declared Yadav as its chief ministerial face and VIP chief Mukesh Sahani as its deputy chief ministerial face, while promising to name more deputy chief ministers from different communities in the future.The 32-page Mahagathbandhan manifesto document, which contains 25 main points, focuses on employment.Apart from the promises of providing government jobs to every family in Bihar and providing permanent status to government contractual workers in various Bihar government departments including community mobilisers, referred to as ‘Jeevika Didis’, that were announced earlier, the manifesto also includes promises to boost employment.It has promised to set up IT parks, SEZs, dairy and agro-based industries, food processing units, a 2,000 acre education city, five new expressways in the state as well as a special focus on fisheries and animal husbandry.The manifesto has also promised to implement the old pension scheme, and in a bid to counter the NDA’s cash transfers to women, the document has promised a monthly allowance to women.It has also promised to bring schemes focussing on education, training and income.In addition, it has promised a social security pension of Rs 1,500 to widows and the elderly.In a bid to aid students appearing for competitive government recruitment exams, it has promised free travel to exam centres. It also pledged an end to paper leaks and irregularities in the conduct of these examinations.The manifesto has promised to bring legislation for the prevention of atrocities against the extremely backward, and to increase reservations above the 50% ceiling through a law that will be sent to the Union government for approval.It has promised to increase reservations for extremely backward classes (EBCs) in panchayats from 20% at present to 30%.In a bid to bolster its critique of a declining law and order situation under the Nitish Kumar government, the opposition alliance has also promised a “zero tolerance” policy against lawlessness by holding station house officers and police superintendents responsible for the law and order in their area.The manifesto has further promised to conduct a labour census to provide monthly assistance to and establish a separate department for migrant labourers.In addition, the INDIA bloc has also promised to lift the ban on toddy in the state – which has had prohibition of alcohol since 2016 – in the interest of farmers, and increasing MGNREGA wages to Rs 300 from Rs 255 and the number of workdays to 200 from 100.