New Delhi, Dec 16 (UNI) The Congress Tuesday launched a dual-front attack on the NDA government, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of attempting to “erase” the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
The offensive was led by Rahul Gandhi through a sharp public statement and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in a spirited intervention during her speech in the Lok Sabha.
The controversy stems from a new bill introduced by the government that proposes significant structural changes to the 2005 flagship rural employment scheme.
Taking to social media platform X, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi alleged that the Prime Minister has a “deep dislike” for the rights of the poor. He characterized MGNREGA as the “living embodiment” of Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of Gram Swaraj (village self-rule), which served as a vital safety net during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For the past ten years, his government has systematically tried to weaken it. Today, he is determined to erase MGNREGA altogether,” Rahul Gandhi stated.
He highlighted three major concerns regarding the new bill:
Centralized Control: Decisions on budgets and rules will shift from villages to the Centre.
Financial Burden on States: States will be forced to bear 40% of the costs, up from the current 10% for material.
Denial of Work: Fear that workers will be denied employment during peak seasons or when central funds run out.
“From Sadak (the streets) to Sansad, we will oppose this anti-people bill,” he declared.
Making a forceful intervention on the issue in the Lower House, Congress General Secretary and MP Priyanka Gandhi moved an objection under Rule 72(1), urging the government to withdraw the bill.
In a moving address, she described the grit of rural laborers whose “hands are as hard as stones” from years of toil. She argued that the revolutionary nature of MGNREGA lay in its demand-driven model—where the law mandated work whenever a poor citizen asked for it.
“Through sub-clauses 4(1) and 4(2) of Schedule 1, the Centre is now empowered to pre-determine fund allocation. This ignores the 73rd Constitutional Amendment and weakens the power of Gram Sabhas to decide their own needs,” Priyanka Gandhi argued.
The Congress leader further pointed out that reducing the Central grant from 90% to 60% would cripple state economies, many of which are already struggling with pending GST dues. She also took a swipe at the government’s penchant for rebranding existing schemes.
“The obsession with renaming every scheme is incomprehensible and a waste of public money. This bill should not be passed in haste to satisfy ‘private ambitions or whims.’ It must, at the very least, be sent to a Standing Committee for scrutiny,” she demanded.
The Lifeline of Rural India, introduced in 2005 by the UPA government, MGNREGA guarantees 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. It has long been a flashpoint between the Congress and the BJP; while the Prime Minister once famously called it a “living monument to UPA’s failures,” his government relied heavily on the scheme to prevent a total economic collapse in rural India during the 2020 lockdowns.
The government maintains that the new changes are intended to improve transparency and “productivity-driven” outcomes, but the opposition remains steadfast that these measures are a prelude to dismantling the legal right to work.
