By Arun Pratap Singh
Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 19 Dec: The Congress has intensified its opposition to renaming of MGNREGA after the Modi government renamed MGNREGA as VB-G RAM-G. National Spokesman of Congress Alok Sharma and former PCC Chief Karan Mahara today addressed a press conference at Congress Bhawan where they accused the Centre of misleading the country and weakening a landmark rights-based welfare law. While Congress MPs highlighted what they described as serious flaws in the Bill inside Parliament, party leaders have also taken the protest to the streets.
As part of this campaign, senior Congress leader and national spokesperson Alok Sharma addressed a press conference in Dehradun and launched a sharp attack on the BJP-led Central government.
Sharma alleged that by changing the name of MGNREGA, the BJP government was attempting to mislead the public. He said the scheme was launched in 2005 by the Congress government as a pilot project in 200 districts, guaranteeing 100 days of employment and empowering gram panchayats to decide the nature of work at the local level. He stated that the scheme was deliberately named after Mahatma Gandhi to ensure employment opportunities for the poor and backward sections, but the Centre had now renamed it as VB-G RAM-G.
Sharma further alleged that provisions were being altered to remove the name of the Father of the Nation and that a plan was being devised to eventually dismantle the scheme, turning it into what he described as a “save money” exercise for the Centre. Sharma accused the BJP of making a malicious attempt to erase Mahatma Gandhi’s name and ideology. He also called it a deliberate effort to undermine Gandhian principles and snatch away the right to work from the poorest Indians. The Congress spokesman claimed that MGNREGA embodied Gandhi’s vision of gram swaraj, dignity of labour and decentralised development.
Sharma said the scheme was earlier fully funded by the Centre, but the Modi government now wanted to shift a burden of nearly Rs 50,000 crore or more onto the states. Under the new arrangement, he said, the Centre would fund only 60 per cent, forcing states to bear 40 per cent of the cost. He pointed out that smaller states like Uttarakhand would find it difficult to sustain such expenditure, raising serious questions about the scheme’s future. He added that the social impact was equally worrying, as a guaranteed employment law was being reduced to an ordinary Bill.
According to Sharma, the most alarming aspect was the dismantling of MGNREGA’s demand-driven nature, replacing it with a limited, centrally controlled allocation system. He said this would severely weaken the federal structure, questioning how the Centre could compel states to share the financial burden of a long-running national scheme. The Congress has demanded that the Bill be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee for detailed reconsideration.
Meanwhile, former Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee President and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Karan Mahara, also addressed a separate press conference today at Uttaranchal Press Club here and alleged that the Modi government was carrying out organised attacks on democracy, the Constitution and the rights of the poor. Mahara claimed that weakening MGNREGA, manipulating elections under the pretext of the State Information Register and conspiring to implicate the opposition in the National Herald case reflected a dictatorial mindset. Mahara asserted that MGNREGA was not merely a welfare scheme but a constitutional right, and alleged that budget cuts, withholding of funds, deletion of job cards and Aadhaar-based payments had excluded millions of labourers, shrinking the 100-day employment guarantee to just 50–55 days and amounting to a conspiracy to deprive the poor of their right to work.
At the press conference held at the Press Club, State Party spokesperson Sujata Paul was also present.
