Sonia Gandhi accused the Modi government of weakening MGNREGA and ignoring rural interests.
She recalled the law’s passage under Manmohan Singh, calling it a consensus-driven reform.
Gandhi alleged recent changes were made without consultation or opposition confidence.
Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Saturday accused the Modi government of systematically undermining the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), alleging that a “black law” aimed at repealing the scheme would be resisted by lakhs of Congress workers across the country, according to PTI.
In a video message released on Saturday, Gandhi said the Centre’s actions amounted to an attack on the interests of crores of farmers, labourers and landless people by weakening MGNREGA, PTI reported. She alleged that the rural poor had been consistently ignored by the government over the past 11 years.
Recalling the passage of the legislation, Gandhi said she clearly remembered the day, 20 years ago, when the MGNREGA Act was passed in Parliament during Manmohan Singh’s tenure as prime minister. The law, she said, was approved by consensus and marked a turning point in rural employment policy.
Describing the Act as a “such a revolutionary step,” the former Congress president said it became a vital means of livelihood for “the deprived, the exploited, and the poorest of the poor.” She added that MGNREGA helped curb distress migration in search of work, provided a legal right to employment and strengthened the role of gram panchayats, according to PTI.
“Through MGNREGA, a concrete step was taken towards realising the dream of an India based on Mahatma Gandhi's vision of Gram Swaraj,” she said in the video message.
However, Gandhi alleged that the government had recently taken drastic steps to alter the scheme. “But it is a matter of great regret that just recently, the government ran a bulldozer over MGNREGA. Not only was Mahatma Gandhi's name removed, but the form and structure of MGNREGA was changed arbitrarily — without any deliberation, without consulting anyone, without taking the opposition into confidence,” she said.
The Congress leader maintained that these changes reflected a broader disregard for rural welfare and democratic consultation, reiterating that the party would oppose any move to dilute or repeal the employment guarantee law, PTI reported.
(With inputs from PTI)
