Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for replacing Mahatma Gandhi NREGA with the VB-G Ram G scheme, calling it a “devastating attack” on the states and the poor people of the country.
Addressing a press conference in Delhi after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, he claimed that Prime Minister Modi single-handedly destroyed the MGNREGA scheme without consulting his Cabinet. “This has been destroyed single-handedly by the Prime Minister without asking his Cabinet, without studying the matter. This is an attack on the states of India because they are simply taking away money that belongs to the state, decision-making power that belongs to the state,” he said.
Equating the VB-G RAM G scheme with the demonetisation, the Congress leader said scrapping the UPA-era rural employment guarantee scheme was an attack on the infrastructure of the states. He said Congress would launch a nationwide mass movement from January 5 to defend the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who accompanied Rahul Gandhi during the presser, said MGNREGA was “not just a welfare programme but a right to work granted by the Constitution of India”.
He added that the party would “democratically oppose every conspiracy to remove Mahatma Gandhi’s name from MGNREGA”.
Kharge accused the Narendra Modi government of weakening and effectively dismantling MGNREGA, describing it as a “deliberate and cruel assault” on the poor.
He alleged that the government had scrapped the law without consultation or evaluation, leaving crores of vulnerable people without employment support. Kharge said the move amounted to an attack on the constitutional right to work under Article 41 of the Directive Principles of State Policy and an insult to Mahatma Gandhi.