The socio-economic survey conducted during the Mahagathbandhan government exposed the dire situation in Bihar. Appallingly, almost 95 lakh families were found below the poverty line. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had announced aid of Rs 2 lakh each to these families, but to date, not a single person received even a partial amount.
As the election process began in Bihar, after the unconstitutional and exclusionary SIR, the state also experienced widespread administrative biasness, both on opposition candidates and voters. During the first phase nomination process, outgoing MLA Satyadev Ram of Darauli was arrested in an old fabricated case, a deliberate action carried out at the behest of the government. In Bhore also, proposed CPIML candidate Comrade Jitendra Paswan was arrested after filing nomination.
Tarari in Bhojpur witnessed large scale repressive onslaught. Feudal-fascist elements fired upon and attacked the campaign convoy of CPIML candidate Comrade Madan Singh. On the day of polling, people protested the illegal influencing campaign in Bihta village. When people raised the issue and protested, armed police personnel pointed rifles at the people, to intimidate them, and also slapped those raising concerns. Despite the issue being flagged to the CEO and ECI, no action was taken against these intimidation attempts.
Keeping People’s Issues at the Forefront
Despite the intimidation attempts, CPIML campaign carried on with vigour. The campaign was not merely an electoral exercise but a mass resistance to reclaim Bihar for the poor, the workers, the landless and the marginalized.
At the core of the campaign stood the burning question of jobs. Bihar’s youth have been pushed to the edge by years of vacancy backlogs, paper leaks and deliberate administrative sabotage of recruitment. CPIML attacked this betrayal, demanding immediate filling of all vacancies and a monthly unemployment allowance to provide relief to the youth abandoned by the regime. We insisted that education must not be handed over to private profiteers and demanded a Common School System to ensure equal access for all. We vowed to smash the nexus of exam mafia and administrative complicity that has destroyed the hopes of lakhs of young people.
The campaign was even sharper when it came to scheme workers, the backbone of Bihar’s welfare system. The ASHA, Anganwadi, Rasoiya, Mamta, Jeevika and sanitation workers enthusiastically took part in the campaign and raised their demand for recognition as regular government employees with full wages, not treated as dispensable labour on meagre honorariums. The campaign demanded restoration of the Old Pension Scheme and expansion of MNREGA to secure two hundred days of work at a living wage.
The struggle for land rights formed another powerful front of our campaign. Bihar’s landless poor have suffered generations of dispossession. CPIML demanded allocation of five decimals of land for every rural landless family and three decimals in urban areas, along with permanent housing and called for immediate implementation of the Bandopadhyay Commission recommendations and redistribution of twenty-one lakh acres of land that rightly belong to the poor. CPIML insisted on occupancy rights for families living on government and non-cultivable land and vowed that no eviction of the poor would be tolerated without full rehabilitation. We defended the rights of sharecroppers, demanded identity cards, protection from eviction and revival of agricultural market committees to ensure fair crop prices.
The campaign also highlighted social equality, women’s rights, the rights of minorities and tribals, and the fight against corruption and police excesses. CPIML campaign asserted protection from violence, economic independence, relief from microfinance exploitation and the freedom to pursue education and employment. CPIML stood firm with minorities and tribal communities, demanding implementation of constitutional safeguards, forest rights and protection against displacement and communal violence.
On governance, the CPIML announced that Bihar needs a people’s administration, not a regime that hides behind prohibition laws, police crackdowns and bureaucratic bias. The CPIML campaign called for recruitment in the health sector, expansion of public services, effective steps against inflation and resistance to any attempt to weaken the Constitution or undermine India’s federal structure. Our campaign also raised the demand for strong protection of the rights and welfare of street vendors, small shopkeepers, startups and disabled people, insisting that their livelihoods, dignity and survival cannot be sacrificed at the altar of elite interests.
Women Campaign Brigade
Another salient feature of our campaign was the launch of the statewide Women’s Campaign Brigade, a spirited initiative led jointly by CPI(ML) Liberation and the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA). Under the banner “Badlo Sarkar, Badlo Bihar,” the brigade became a force of resistance across villages, blocks and small towns, amplifying the voices and anger of Bihar’s women who have borne the brunt of the current regime’s failures.
Teams of the brigade, each comprising two to three members, fanned out across constituencies where CPI(ML) is contesting. Carrying songs of struggle and slogans demanding change, they held meetings, choupal discussions and street-corner gatherings, engaging women in direct conversations about their everyday hardships, their rights and the collective power they hold to overturn an anti-people government. The brigade confronted the ruling coalition’s hypocrisy, especially its decision to bring leaders like Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, accused of sexual harassment of women athletes into Bihar to campaign. As CPI(ML) Politburo member and AIPWA General Secretary Meena Tiwari, who was campaigning in Tarari, asserted, when the BJP parades accused men on their campaign stage, our Women’s Campaign Brigade stands with the courage, dignity and fighting spirit of Bihar’s women.
The brigade forcefully brought forward the urgent concerns of women: rising gender-based violence, the crushing trap of microfinance debt, the exploitation of women workers and scheme workers, and the worsening unemployment crisis that threatens the future of the state’s youth. Across meetings, women raised their anger against fraudulent schemes and hollow promises and demanded employment, freedom from debt and dignity. ASHA, Anganwadi and Jeevika workers used the campaign as a platform to assert their demand for recognition, fair wages and full labour rights, refusing to remain invisible any longer.
Across districts, AIPWA and CPI(ML) women leaders tirelessly mobilized rural and working-class women, turning the pain and struggles into an organized political force. The Women’s Campaign Brigade strengthened the CPIML campaign and carried the demands for justice, dignity and a transformed, exploitation free Bihar to every corner.
