VAISHALI, Nov. 4 -- A frail 50-year-old Suresh Paswan, a construction worker from Vaishali district, has spent the last two decades in Bengaluru - not by choice, but by compulsion. Poverty and illiteracy forced him to leave his home in Ghataro Chaturbhuj village of Lalganj block, about 50 km north of Patna, in search of a livelihood. "I earn around Rs.600 a day assisting in masonry work in Bengaluru. Back home, I wouldn't have made even half," he says, his voice echoing the quiet resignation of countless men from Bihar who toil far from their families. "With more mouths to feed and no jobs in the village, I had no option but to leave." Suresh's story mirrors that of millions of Bihari migrants who have built India's cities brick by brick but remain cut off from the progress they helped shape. His brothers, Manish and Kishan, work in Punjab and Delhi, while another villager, 35-year-old Sanjay Paswan, has gone as far as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to earn Rs.35,000 a month in a private firm. Yet, none of them feel content. "No one likes leaving home to work for six months, sleeping at work sites and struggling for space in jam-packed trains during festivals like Diwali or Chhath," says Sanjay. "If I got even Rs.20,000 a month in my village, I'd never have left." In Ghataro Chaturbhuj, migration is not an exception - it's the norm. Of the village's roughly 25,000 residents (Census 2011), most working-age men live and labour outside Bihar. From petrol pump attendants in Maharashtra to factory workers in Delhi and daily wagers in Tamil Nadu, nearly every household has a breadwinner away from home. Suresh never obtained a Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) job card that could have given him 100 days of work a year. But even that, he argues, wouldn't suffice. "For unskilled labourers like me, MNREGA pays about Rs.255 a day in Bihar. After paying agents, you're left with Rs.200 - too little for a family of five," he says. "And even those jobs are difficult to get, as one has to grease the palms of panchayati raj representatives like the mukhiya, who seek commission." The lack of employment opportunities has bred cynicism. "The job situation hasn't changed in 20 years. Why would it now?" Suresh asks this reporter. Bihar's economy continues to be defined by migration. With over 74.5 lakh outbound migrants (Census 2011), the state ranks second only to Uttar Pradesh. The drivers remain the same - unemployment, low wages, and limited industrialisation. More than half of Bihar's residents are in the working-age bracket (15-59 years), yet the state ranks among the worst in youth unemployment. Government jobs remain the dream, but private-sector employment is scarce, and the manufacturing sector contributes a meagre 5-6% to the state's GDP, largely unchanged in two decades. Over time, migration patterns have evolved. In the 1960s and 70s, workers moved to Punjab and Haryana to meet the Green Revolution's labour demand. Today, they head to Delhi, Mumbai, Surat, and Bengaluru for urban, often permanent, work in construction, factories, and logistics. Migration and remittances have become Bihar's de facto survival strategy. With elections around the corner, both the ruling NDA and the opposition INDIA bloc have rolled out ambitious promises aimed squarely at the job-starved electorate. On October 30, the NDA pledged one crore jobs, seven expressways, new medical colleges, and a statewide skill census to establish mega skill centres. For workers, it announced financial aid, life insurance up to Rs.4 lakh, and support for auto, e-rickshaw, and taxi drivers. The INDIA bloc, on the other hand, has promised an official order for one government job per family within 20 days of forming government....