Patna: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav handed out appointment letters to over 25,000 newly recruited teachers in a mega event in Patna on Thursday (November 2).Similar events were organised in district centres, where ministers and administrative authorities gave out appointment letters to over a lakh new recruits in various teaching positions.The event was organised at a grand scale by the Bihar government in what was a clear attempt by Nitish Kumar to set the political narrative around job creation – an issue where the Narendra Modi-led Union government has scored poorly.At the same time, the event also marked the partial fulfilment of Tejashwi Yadav’s poll promise to generate more than 10 lakh jobs.By all accounts it was unprecedented – no state government in independent India’s annals had given out over 1.20 lakh jobs in one day.The newly recruited teachers include 70,545 primary school teachers, 26,089 secondary teachers and 23,702 higher secondary or plus-two teachers. As many as 57,854 women teachers constitute 48% of the total number of people recruited.Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav handing a job certificate. Photo: Special arrangement.The Nitish Kumar government has reserved 35% seats for women in the state.Bihar also has the highest number of women in its police forces in comparison to other states.While the chief minister, his deputy Tejashwi Yadav and education minister Chandrashekhar gave letters of appointment to about 25,000 youths at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan, the ministers in charge and district magistrates concerned distributed the same to youths in the state’s 37 other districts.“It was a mela (fair)-like atmosphere in Gopalganj. The job recipients were happy and so were their family members”, said Rajan Gupta, a Hindi-language journalist at the Gopalganj district headquarters in north Bihar.He added: “The exercise will have a cascading impact on crores of people in the state and beyond.”It is clear that the Bihar government is focusing on foregrounding its government jobs push in the background of Prime Minister Narendra Modi failing on his promise to give 1.5 crore jobs per year, which he made ahead of the 2014 general elections.Speaking at a Communist Party of India rally ahead of the job event, Nitish took a dig at the media.“The newspapers ignore our performance. They won’t give due space to today’s event of giving over 1.20 lakh jobs, but will amplify insignificant works of [the Narendra Modi government],” he said.Nitish is a leading figure in the opposition alliance ‘INDIA’ that will take on the BJP in the 2024 elections. Photo: X/@NitishKumar.“They [the BJP] have captured the media. We, under the banner of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), are working to free the media too … the media will have its freedom back when we are in power.”The BJP criticised the exercise. “The Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) are locked in the battle to take credit. Over 30,000 non-Biharis have got jobs at the cost of Bihar’s youths”, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said.Other saffron leaders alleged “irregularities” in the exercise.Tejashwi Yadav said, “What will the BJP say? The PM has miserably failed on his promise of giving jobs. They [the BJP] are not talking about their leader’s jumlabaji (false promises) and inability to deliver goods. They stand exposed.”The exercise to give appointment letters involved participation of the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) and the education department and took six months.Additional chief secretary of the education department, K.K. Pathak (IAS). Photo: Special arrangement.Additional secretary of the education department and professor K.K. Pathak (IAS) was also involved in the preparations for the job event.BackgroundFrom 2007 to 2020, Nitish’s government is learned to have given appointment letters to five lakh youths, mostly as teachers, but it never in one go and reflected many discrepancies at various stages.This is the first time that the BPSC – that employs deputy collector-level officers – has recruited teachersm adopting rigorous competitive exams.In the background of what the common people describe as the job mahakumbha in the state is Tejashwi Yadav’s promise during the 2020 assembly elections that he would give 10 lakh jobs to the youth if his party came to power.His RJD was in the opposition then against the JDU-BJP combine. The RJD emerged as the single largest party in 2020. It failed to replace the JDU-BJP combine by a whisker.But his promise of employment was believed to have helped Tejashwi emerge as the leader of the youth in his own capacity.He then joined the Nitish-led mahagathbandhan government in August 2022.Inspiration from Karpoori ThakurKarpoori Thakur. Photo: Twitter/@IrfanUllahAnsKarpoori Thakur, mentor of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav, had set an example of giving jobs in one go when he was Bihar chief minister in the 1970s.On January 26, 1979, Thakur had given jobs to 6,700 engineers in one ago by organising a camp near the Bihar secretariat.It was a big number at that stage of history. There were only a few engineering colleges in the state. Many students had participated in the Jayaprakash Narayan (JP)-led movement that paved the way for Thakur to replace the Congress government in the state in 1977.The Congress government had not appointed engineers for a long time, leaving a large number of engineering graduates unemployed.Thakur had become a hero of the youth by giving them jobs. Nitish Kumar too was an engineering graduate who could have easily got a job at that time. But he was a front-running activist of the JP movement.He tore his engineering degree at the same Gandhi Maidan to dedicate himself to the service of the people during the JP movement.Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, author, media educator and independent researcher in folklore.
