Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday slammed the Modi government for replacing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the new Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Employment and Livelihood Mission (Rural) Bill, also known as the VB-G RAM G Bill, calling it “anti-village” and a demolition of 20 years of work. Posting on X, he said, “Last night, the Modi government demolished twenty years of MGNREGA in one day. It demolishes the rights-based, demand-driven guarantee and turns it into a rationed scheme which is controlled from Delhi. It is anti-state and anti-village by design.”
Gandhi argued that MGNREGA had empowered rural workers by giving them bargaining power, improving wages, reducing exploitation, curbing distress migration, and building rural infrastructure. “That leverage is precisely what this government wants to break,” he said. He added that by capping work and creating more ways to deny employment, the VB-G RAM G Bill weakens the only instrument rural communities had to secure livelihoods.
Highlighting MGNREGA’s role during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gandhi said the programme had prevented crores from falling into hunger and debt. He also pointed out that women, Dalits, Adivasis, landless workers, and the poorest OBCs benefited most from the law, and rationing employment would push them out first. “When you ration a jobs programme, it is women, Dalits, Adivasis, landless workers, and the poorest OBC communities who get pushed out first,” he said.
Gandhi criticised the government for bulldozing the Bill through Parliament without proper scrutiny, noting that the opposition’s demand to send it to a standing committee was rejected. “A law that rewires the rural social contract, affecting crores of workers, should never be rammed through without serious committee scrutiny, expert consultation, and public hearings,” he said. He also condemned the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme, saying it stripped the programme of its “soul and spirit.”
He accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of targeting rural labour and centralising power. “PM Modi’s targets are clear: weaken labour, weaken the leverage of rural India, especially Dalits, OBCs and Adivasis, centralise power, and then sell slogans as reform,” Gandhi said. He added that Congress would resist the move and work with workers, panchayats, and state governments to ensure the law is withdrawn.
The VB-G RAM G Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on Thursday afternoon amid protests and walkouts, and cleared the Rajya Sabha by voice vote just after midnight. The legislation increases the guaranteed days of rural employment from 100 to 125 but introduces pre-approved plans for generating work, a key change that has drawn criticism from opposition leaders. The Bill will become law once it receives the President’s assent.
