Offering job permanence to Bihar’s two-lakh Jeevika community mobilisers and an equal number of contractual employees, ensuring education and employment for girls, and providing houses, adequate ration and incomes for women — these are among the Mahagathbandhan’s new promises that the state’s Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav has made in the run-up to the assembly elections. He also dismissed rumours of friction within the alliance over seat-sharing.

At a press conference Wednesday, Yadav, who is leading the Rashtriya Janata Dal ’s election campaign in the state, announced a series of measures for Jeevika didis — the women associated with the state government’s World Bank-aided Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project (BRLP) for the social and economic empowerment of the rural poor, also known

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