RJD, NDA leaders clash at India News 'Manchh 2025'

As Bihar moves towards a high-stakes Assembly election, the India News "Manchh 2025" conclave produced a charged face-off over jobs, migration, law and order and caste politics, with leaders from rival camps setting out starkly different diagnoses and cures for the state.

- TDG NETWORK

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav accused Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of presiding over two lost decades. Citing official rankings, he said Bihar remained India's poorest state, burdened with the highest unemployment and distress migration, and the weakest per-capita income and investment. "There is no industry, no IT ecosystem, no SEZs, no data centres, no agro-based processing. Factories lie shut, education and health are failing. After 20 years of Nitish Kumar and 11 years of Modi, Bihar has not progressed," he argued. With roughly 60% of the population young, he said the state was "the youngest in the country", yet youths were "beaten with lathis, suffering exam paper leaks, forced to migrate despite degrees".

Yadav maintained the electorate now sought "parivartan" after repeatedly backing the NDA in Delhi—"people ask what Bihar got in return". He contrasted what he called unkept promises—such as reviving sugar millswith steps taken during his 17 months as Deputy Chief Minister, including reopening the Riga sugar mill, pushing recruitment ("five lakh jobs facilitated, three lakh under process") revising reservation limits and framing IT, tourism and sports policies.