NEW DELHI: The Opposition has mounted a pointy assault on the Centre over its transfer to repeal and substitute the two-decade-old Mahatma Gandhi Nationwide Rural Employment Assure Act (MGNREGA). A number of leaders have questioned the elimination of Mahatma Gandhi’s identify from one in all India’s largest welfare programmes.Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday alleged that the proposal is a part of a “BJP-RSS conspiracy” to dismantle a rights-based welfare legislation that advantages crores of rural poor.
In a submit on X, Kharge wrote: “This isn’t nearly renaming the Mahatma Gandhi Nationwide Rural Employment Assure Act. This can be a BJP-RSS conspiracy to finish MGNREGA.”Kharge alleged that eradicating Mahatma Gandhi’s identify whereas paying symbolic tributes to him uncovered what he known as the federal government’s “hollowness and hypocrisy.” The Congress chief mentioned that the get together would oppose the transfer “in Parliament and on the streets” and wouldn’t permit the rights of poor staff to be taken away.“Erasing Gandhi’s identify on the centenary of the Sangh reveals how hole and hypocritical these are who, like Modi ji, supply flowers to Bapu on international soil. The Congress Celebration will strongly oppose in Parliament and on the streets any such determination of this boastful regime that’s towards the poor and staff,” the veteran chief additional wrote. The remarks got here after the Centre proposed to repeal the two-decade-old Mahatma Gandhi Nationwide Rural Employment Assure Act (MGNREGA) with one other laws, titled the Viksit Bharat Assure for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB–G RAM G) Invoice, 2025. The invoice seeks to exchange the MGNREGA with a revamped framework geared toward aligning rural employment and growth with the nationwide imaginative and prescient of Viksit Bharat 2047. It has been listed within the supplementary record of companies issued on Monday.Congress common secretary Jairam Ramesh additionally objected to the proposed laws and mentioned the Opposition has demanded that the Invoice be referred to the suitable Parliamentary Standing Committee for detailed scrutiny.In a submit on X, Ramesh mentioned such far-reaching laws requires “deep examine and extensive consultations,” in step with parliamentary traditions.“All the Opposition is demanding that the next three far-reaching Payments be referred to the Standing Committees involved. We’re hopeful that in step with the very best of Parliamentary traditions and practices, this demand might be agreed to by the Authorities. The Payments require deep examine and extensive consultations: Larger Schooling Fee Invoice, Atomic Vitality Invoice and G-RAM-G Invoice,” his submit learn.Earlier, Ramesh criticised the federal government’s concentrate on renaming schemes, accusing it of prioritising branding over substance. He questioned why Mahatma Gandhi’s identify was being faraway from a programme that has been in place since 2005Talking to reporters, Ramesh mentioned: “The Narendra Modi authorities is unbeatable in altering the names of schemes and legal guidelines, nobody can match it. The Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan was was Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the agricultural LPG distribution program was named Ujjwala… They’re specialists in packaging, branding, and naming. The shocking factor is that they hate Pandit Nehru, however they hate Mahatma Gandhi a lot too; the Mahatma Gandhi Nationwide Employment Assure Scheme has been operating since 2005... You might be altering its identify to the Venerable Bapu Employment Assure Scheme; what’s the issue with the identify Mahatma Gandhi?”Different Opposition leaders echoed comparable issues. Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka, who chairs the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Improvement and Panchayati Raj, mentioned the BJP had at all times supposed to finish MGNREGA.He recalled that the committee had really helpful rising the variety of workdays and wages beneath the scheme and flagged pending dues to states. “I do not know what downside they’ve with the identify of Bapu, however they needed to complete it as a result of it was a Congress scheme. I head the Parliamentary panel, and we made so many suggestions — to extend the variety of days to 150, to extend the wages… the states have pending dues, West Bengal just isn’t getting funds. They’ve introduced a Invoice, however why have they eliminated the identify of Mahatma Gandhi?, ” Ulka requested.
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Congress chief Priyanka Gandhi Vadra additionally questioned the rationale behind renaming the legislation.Talking to reporters within the Parliament Home advanced, she mentioned: “Each time the identify of a scheme is modified, there are such a lot of adjustments that should be made in workplaces, stationery… for which cash is spent. So, what’s the profit? Why is it being completed?Why is Mahatma Gandhi’s identify being eliminated. Mahatma Gandhi is taken into account the tallest chief not simply within the nation however on the earth; so, eradicating his identify, I actually do not perceive what the target is. What’s their intention?”Senior Trinamool Congress chief and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien termed the transfer an insult to the Father of the Nation.“However then, are you stunned! These are the identical individuals who hero-worshipped the person who killed Mahatma Gandhi. They need to insult Mahatma Gandhi and take away him from historical past,” O’Brien mentioned.CPI(M) common secretary MA Child alleged that the proposed overhaul was an try to masks the dilution of MGNREGA’s rights-based construction.“The Union Authorities’s grandstanding over a complete revamp of the MGNREGS is an try to cover the startling undeniable fact that the fundamental rights-based framework beneath which it operated is being dismantled, and the central share introduced down drastically. We’ll battle tooth and nail towards this disastrous transfer each inside and out of doors Parliament,” he claimed.Samajwadi Celebration chief Akhilesh Yadav additionally criticised the federal government’s transfer, saying renaming schemes was a long-standing BJP observe.Talking to reporters, Yadav mentioned: “The BJP’s tradition of adjusting names could be very outdated… On this double-engine authorities, the engine in Delhi is studying from the engine in Uttar Pradesh… This double-engine authorities is claiming others’ work as its personal. They haven’t any new work to point out.”MGNREGA, enacted in 2005 and renamed in 2009, ensures as much as 100 days of wage employment yearly to rural households keen to undertake unskilled handbook work.The proposed VB–G RAM G Invoice will increase this assure to 125 days and seeks to determine a broader rural growth framework aligned with Viksit Bharat 2047.Rural growth minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, within the assertion of objects and causes of the Invoice, acknowledged that MGNREGA has offered assured wage employment for the previous 20 years. Nevertheless, he mentioned additional strengthening was essential in view of socio-economic adjustments in rural India and the growth of different social safety schemes.The Invoice proposes a centrally sponsored framework beneath which states will design their very own schemes inside six months of the Act’s implementation, with the Centre making allocations based mostly on outlined parameters. Any expenditure past the accredited allocation can be borne by state governments.
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