Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 19 Dec: Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) President Ganesh Godiyal has strongly criticised the Narendra Modi led BJP government’s decision to change the name of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In a statement issued today, Godiyal alleged that the move reflects a dangerous political game aimed at masking the government’s failures. He claimed that the BJP was aggressively publicising the renaming of MGNREGA as a major achievement, while having little of substance to showcase from its long years in power.
Godiyal also took strong exception to the statement of BJP State President Mahendra Bhatt who claimed that the Congress was opposing the name of the scheme for political reasons. He countered this assertion by stating that the Congress was not objecting to any particular name, but to the deliberate attempt by the BJP to cloak an employment guarantee scheme meant for the poor in a religious garb through mere renaming.
Godiyal asserted that, instead of indulging in symbolic exercises, the Central government would have done better by introducing an additional employment guarantee scheme on the lines of MGNREGA for the benefit of the underprivileged, a move which, he said, would have been welcomed by the Congress. The PCC Chief also alleged that the BJP was attempting to discharge its responsibilities simply by rechristening existing schemes, as it had little to present before the public by way of concrete achievements even after 12 years in power. He reiterated that the Congress party’s objection was regarding the practice of renaming, which he described as a dangerous and misleading exercise, rather than with any specific nomenclature.
Godiyal further stated that MGNREGA represents a statutory right to employment for crores of people across the country. He alleged that the decision of the BJP government was part of a calculated political conspiracy to weaken the Right to Employment Act and to erase the name and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi from one of India’s most well-known welfare legislations. He said that it was ironic that a scheme which Mahendra Bhatt had described as a symbol of the Congress party’s failures was now being renamed by the Central government as ‘G Ram G’ in an attempt to appropriate credit. He emphasised that integrity was indispensable in political life, but said it was a matter of shame for the state that funds of the same MGNREGA scheme, introduced by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the poor, were allegedly misappropriated by a BJP MLA over several years. Describing this as a glaring example of corruption, he demanded that BJP State President Mahendra Bhatt issue a clarification on behalf of his party on the matter.
Godiyal claimed that the MGNREGA law was the outcome of a long struggle and carried the promise of work for every hand with full wages for the labour performed, granting rural citizens a legal right to demand employment and ensuring 100 days of work in rural areas. He alleged that the move to alter the law amounted to a combined assault on the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, the rights of workers and the constitutional responsibility of the Centre, exposing what he described as a larger BJP–RSS conspiracy to dismantle rights-based welfare programmes and replace them with centrally controlled charity. He said Mahatma Gandhi symbolised the dignity of labour, social justice and the moral duty of the state towards the poorest, and the decision to remove his name from the employment law reflected the BJP and RSS’s ideological discomfort with Gandhian values. Godiyal further claimed that, while the Congress government under Manmohan Singh had ensured primary central funding of wages, the proposed BJP bill abolishes the legal right to work, shifts the financial burden to states, weakens federalism and undermines the very foundation of the demand-driven employment guarantee system.
