NEW DELHI: Upping the ante on Centre’s new rural job law that replaces UPA-era MGNREGA, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that the Modi government’s objectives in repealing MGNREGA are the same as they were in bringing the ‘three black farm laws’, and urged workers to stand united to demand the rollback of VB-G RAM G Act.
Addressing the National MGNREGA Workers’ Convention in the capital, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said the concept of MGNREGA was to give rights to the poor.
Asserting that the policies of the BJP are aimed at concentrating the country’s wealth and property in the hands of a chosen few, he said the idea of the BJP is to finish off the Constitution and democracy.
“The MGNREGA movement is a big opportunity for the poor people who believe in the Constitution and the idea of India, that if they stand together, Modi will back off and MGNREGA would be reinstated,” Gandhi said. The event was attended by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretaries Jairam Ramesh and K C Venugopal among others.
“The thinking behind it was that anyone in need of work could demand work with dignity. MGNREGA was run through the third tier of the system, the Panchayati Raj system. MGNREGA had the voice of the people, their rights, poor people were given the right to work, a concept which Modi-BJP is now trying to finish off,” Gandhi alleged.
Recalling the farm laws brought by the Modi government in 2020 and repealed the next year, Gandhi said a few years ago the BJP had attacked farmers. “There is only one way to stop them, workers have been shown the way by farmers. If we stand together, you can decide the name of the scheme. But there is one shortcoming and that is unity,” he said.
Echoing the view, Kharge said the government is trying to bring back the ‘bonded labour’ practice by repealing NREGA. Kharge claimed that Modi keeps harping on bullet trains and Vande Bharat trains but has not been able to lay tracks as had been done during UPA rule.