Mumbai / New Delhi / 21st, December.
The General Secretary of All India Congress Committee, former Union Minister, and Sirsa MP Kumari Selja said that in the name of so-called reforms, the Modi government has destroyed the very soul of MNREGA, the world’s largest employment guarantee scheme. This amounts to snatching the right to work from the poor and is a direct attack on Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of Gram Swaraj. Addressing a press conference on Sunday at the Regional Congress Office in Mumbai, Kumari Selja said the MNREGA is not merely a scheme, but has been the economic lifeline of crores of rural families. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, this scheme provided support to rural India. However, since 2014, the Central Government has systematically weakened MNREGA through continuous budget cuts, delays in wage payments, cancellation of job cards, and Aadhaar-based conditionalities, as a result of which workers are now able to get barely 50–55 days of work in a year.
Kumari Selja said the new framework is dismantling the constitutional character of MNREGA and converting it into a centrally controlled, conditional scheme. Earlier, it was a legal right of workers; now it is being made dependent on administrative discretion. This also constitutes a serious attack on the federal structure, as the Centre retains control while imposing an additional financial burden on the states. Kumari Selja alleged that by taking away the powers of Gram Sabhas and Panchayats, the system is being placed under excessive centralized digital control, which will ignore local needs and the real demands of the poor. Ending the demand-driven nature of MNREGA and replacing it with a budget-capped system is akin to abolishing the right to rural employment. She said this is an insult to Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals and an open conspiracy against the rural poor.
The MP said until now MNREGA was a guarantee based on rights derived from Article 21 of the Constitution. MNREGA was earlier fully funded by the Central Government, but now the Modi government wants to shift a burden of around ₹50,000 crore or more onto the states, potentially forcing them to bear nearly 40 percent of the expenditure. The Congress Party will oppose this anti-people, anti-worker, and anti-federal decision on every platform-from the streets to Parliament.
:-It is Sonia Gandhi’s vision that guaranteed work to the labouring class:-Kumari Selja
The MP Kumari Selja said that a historic scheme like MNREGA gives the country’s labourers and poor the right to live with dignity. She said the passage of MNREGA in Parliament was driven by Sonia Gandhi’s far-sighted vision, while Dr. Manmohan Singh’s government implemented it effectively and ensured that it reached every household. Selja said the MNREGA did not give alms to the poor, but a legal right to work, and became the most successful employment guarantee scheme for rural India. Selja said the poverty cannot be eliminated merely by transferring money into bank accounts. Today, the BJP government is weakening MNREGA and snatching the livelihoods of the poor, which is outright injustice and an anti-worker policy.
