Congress Opposes MGNREGA Scrapping, Accuses Govt of Evading Pollution Debate
Congress Opposes MGNREGA Scrapping, Accuses Govt of Evading Pollution Debate
M.U.H
20/12/202531
NEW DELHI : The Congress has said it will oppose the scrapping of the rights-based Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the issue and strategy will be discussed in the Congress Working Committee meeting on December 27.
The party also accused the government of running away from the debate on pollution that is not only affecting the national capital but the entire country. It alleged that the aim of the entire Winter Session of parliament was to insult the greatest Indian leaders and founding fathers of modern India — Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here on Friday, party General Secretary and in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said that the Winter Session started with insulting Tagore and ended up with insulting Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. In between, he added, the government as usual insulted and tried to malign Nehru, also.
Asserting that the Congress will not take the scrapping of the MGNREGA lying down, Jairam Ramesh said a strategy will be formed and the issue will be discussed in the forthcoming CWC meeting. He pointed out that the MGNREGA was scrapped without any discussion with any of the stakeholders. Not even the BJP-ruled state chief ministers were taken into confidence, he claimed.
Giving a brief background of the MGNREGA, Jairam Ramesh said the law was passed unanimously in 2005, after it was examined and thoroughly deliberated upon in the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which was headed by a prominent BJP leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister.
He noted that the new bill, the ‘VB G Ram G’, that seeks to replace MGNREGA will lead to over-centralisation, as the states and panchayats will have no control over the nature of work and employment to be provided through the scheme. He said the states will be overburdened as now the expenses will be shared in 60:40 ratio, while under MGNREGA, the Central government was bound to provide 90 per cent share.
He said that by scrapping the MGNREGA, the BJP government had snatched the “right to work” of lakhs and lakhs of marginalised people belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes and women.
Jairam Ramesh also disclosed that the legislation to scrap the MGNREGA was introduced only two days ago and the Lok Sabha was adjourned sine die after the bill was pushed through, and the Opposition was not allowed to discuss it properly.
He said that on November 30, during the formal all-party meeting, which was presided over by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, nothing was mentioned about the VB G Ram G legislation.
The senior Congress leader observed that all this seems to be part of a bigger conspiracy, as first Modi government targeted the Right to Information Act and now the MGNREGA. He apprehended that next in line might be the Forest Rights Act and Land Acquisition Act, and eventually the government may even fiddle with the Food Security Act.
Accusing the government of running away from discussion on the serious problem of pollution, the Congress official said the Opposition would have provided constructive suggestions on the subject.
He ridiculed the government’s stand that there was no link between death rates and pollution, or that it was in any way linked to lung diseases. He said the Congress would have provided full evidence, but the government simply ran away from the debate, as had been suggested by Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.
Jairam Ramesh also referred to the very short duration of the ‘Winter Session’, which he described as a “pollution session”, and noted how the ruling party insulted Tagore, Gandhi and Pandit Nehru during the course of the session.
He pointed out that the BJP leaders began by insulting Tagore over the national song ‘Vande Mataram’; in between, as usual, they insulted Nehru; and in the end, they insulted Mahatma Gandhi by removing a law in his name that guaranteed employment to the marginalised rural people across the country.
