Will RJD Delay Salaries or Stop Development Work to Fulfill 10 Lakh Jobs’ Promise, Asks Nitish Kumar
On the last day of political campaigning for the second phase of elections in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar once again questioned the 10 lakh government poll promise of Tejashwi Yadav.
“Where will you give jobs from? What sort of money do you have? Giving so many jobs will mean paying Rs 1 lakh 44 thousand crore annually. Where will you get this money from,” Nitish Kumar asked in his e-rally. For a state with a budget of Rs 2.11 lakh crore, Nitish added, paying well over half of its financial resources in salaries would mean stopping all other works.
“In your parents’ 15 year rule the state budget was at its max Rs 24,000 crore. We brought it to its present position by carrying several development works. So will you stop all other works in order to meet your poll promise? In your parents’ time government workers did not get their salary on time. Will you hire so many people again to not pay them?” Nitish asked.
JD(U)’s ally BJP has promised 19 lakh jobs, double the number promised by Tejashwi Yadav.
“When I went to campaign against the 15 year of RJD rule in 2005, teachers, professors everywhere told me that they hadn’t been paid their salaries. This is what will happen when these people come to power again. They’re promising the moon. They are spreading myths and we should be on guard at all times against them. We have already made several changes to the industrial policy of the state which will allow for the creation of many jobs. Nobody will have to go outside the state in search of work,” Nitish Kumar said.
Kumar said that his government provided over 6 lakh jobs during its 15-year regime as compared to 95,000 people getting jobs during the RJD regime from 1990 to 2005. “They (RJD) were in power for 15 years and Bihar and Jharkhand were one for 10 of these. Between 1990 and 2005, only 95,000 people were given jobs. In our administration, over 6 lakh jobs were given and besides this many others were enrolled in other services,” Nitish Kumar said.
Jobs has become a big issue in the state with Tejashwi Yadav promising that his very first act as the Chief Minister will be to provide 10 lakh government jobs. Nitish Kumar has often taken digs at this poll promise, sometimes wondering whether Tejashwi will print fake notes to pay for his poll sop and at other times calling it “bogus”.
