Congress accuses govt of attacking poor at MGNREGA protest in Delhi

The Congress on Friday accused the Union government of mounting a sustained assault on the poor and dismantling their statutory right to employment, as party leaders and workers gathered in Delhi to protest the replacement of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Addressing the protest held at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters on Akbar Road, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Dharmendra Yadav said the Centre’s actions reflected a “continuous attack on the poor”, warning that employment guarantees once promised under law were now being systematically withdrawn.

“This government is relentlessly targeting the poorest sections. People who were assured work under a legal guarantee are now seeing those assurances taken away. The systems meant to support them are being slowly dismantled,” Yadav said, urging party workers to sustain the agitation. “This is not a short battle. It is a long struggle, and we must remain disciplined and determined to force the government to bow.”

The protest formed part of the Congress’ 45-day nationwide campaign titled ‘MGNREGA Bachao Sangram Yatra’, launched to oppose the Union government’s new rural employment legislation — the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-G RAM G). The party has demanded the repeal of the new law and restoration of the original MGNREGA framework.

Congress general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh, who participated in the protest, said MGNREGA was not merely a welfare scheme but a historic rights-based law that gave rural households a legal entitlement to employment. He accused the Centre of hollowing out that right through the new legislation.

“The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act gave lakhs of families the legal right to work. What the government has done now is erode the very foundation of that right,” Ramesh said, adding that the VB-G RAM G Act diluted the spirit and intent of the UPA-era law.

Recalling the origins of MGNREGA, Ramesh said the landmark legislation was launched on February 2, 2006, from a village in Anantapur district, with key contributions from former prime minister Manmohan Singh, then National Advisory Council chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

He said the law had transformed rural India by providing livelihood security to millions of families every year, particularly benefiting landless households, Dalits, Adivasis, marginalised communities and women. The scheme, he added, also strengthened grassroots democracy by empowering panchayats and pioneered direct wage payments into workers’ bank accounts.

Slogans such as “MGNREGA chor gaddi chhod” rang out as party workers accused the government of betraying rural India.

The protest comes months after Parliament passed the VB-G RAM G Act amid uproar from opposition parties. The new law, which received presidential assent in December 2025, effectively replaced MGNREGA after nearly two decades.

While the government has claimed that the statutory guarantee of work has been increased from 100 to 125 days per rural household annually, critics argue that changes to funding patterns, planning mechanisms and implementation structures dilute the rights-based nature of the original law. Opposition parties and several state assemblies have warned that the new framework centralises power, shifts greater financial burden onto states, and weakens the legal entitlement to employment that lay at the heart of MGNREGA.

The Congress has vowed to intensify its nationwide agitation in the coming weeks, framing the battle over rural employment as a fight to protect the constitutional rights and dignity of India’s poorest citizens.

With PTI inputs