BENGALURU: KARNATAKA Minister for IT/ BT and Rural Development & Panchayat Raj Priyank Kharge on Wednesday said that the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025, is anti-poor, anti-farmer and unconstitutional.
“There is no definition of what ‘Viksit Bharat’ actually means, yet sweeping powers are handed to the Centre at the cost of workers, panchayats and states. Politically, socially, legally and morally, this is not something we can accept,” the minister stated.
Kharge chaired a national roundtable against the VB-GRAM G Act in New Delhi with over 80 participants, including civil rights groups, economists, senior lawyers, academics, activists, NGOs, and NREGA workers.
The roundtable resolved to work on multiple fronts, to step up efforts to explain the law clearly on the ground, counter misinformation, and build public awareness about how the new Act weakens livelihoods and also to examine constitutional violations by the new legislation, said a statement issued by the minister’s office.
The minister stated that the MGNREGA was not merely a welfare programme but a guarantee that gave rural families dignity, security, and confidence to stay in their villages.
“From starving the scheme of funds to delaying payments and now rewriting the law itself, the BJP has tried to kill MGNREGA slowly and steadily for over a decade. Giving the Centre the power to reject panchayat plans and control allocations is a direct attempt to finish the scheme by design,” the minister said.
Kharge stated that they will work from villages to courts, from public mobilisation to legal action for repealing the Act and restoring the MGNREGA.