The Congress on Friday said thatthe Parliament’s Winter Session was a polluted session as it targeted the government over the passage of rhe VB G Ram G Bill to replace MGNTEGA and said that it will oppose the scrapping of and the issue and strategy will be discussed in the Congress Working Committee meeting to be held on December 27.
The party also accused the government of running away from the debate on pollution that is not only affecting the national capital but the entire country. It alleged that the aim of the entire Winter Session was to insult the greatest Indian leaders and founding fathers of modern India — Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
Addressing a press conference here, party General Secretary and in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said that the Winter Session started with insulting Gurudev Tagore and ended up insulting the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi.
In between, he added, the government as usual insulted and tried to malign the first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, also.
He asserted that the Congress will not take the scrapping of the MGNREGA lying down.
Ramesh said that the party will form a strategy and the issue will be discussed in the forthcoming CWC, party’s highest decis99j making body meeting scheduled for December 27.
Ramesh pointed out that the MGNREGA was scrapped without any discussion with any of the stakeholders. Not even the BJP-ruled state chief ministers were taken into confidence.
He dared the BJP to name any of the Chief Ministers or states with which it had held discussions on VB G RAM G Bill.
Giving a brief background of the MGNREGA, Ramesh said the law was passed unanimously in 2005, after it was examined and thoroughly deliberated upon in the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which was headed by a prominent BJP leader and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh.
He noted that the new bill, the ‘VB G Ram G’, that seeks to replace MGNREGA will lead to over-centralisation, as the states and panchayats will have no control over the nature of work and employment to be provided through the scheme.
He said the states will be overburdened as now the expenses will be shared in 60:40 ratio, while under MGNREGA, the Central government was bound to provide 90 per cent share.
He said that by scrapping the MGNREGA, the BJP government had snatched the “right to work” of lakhs and lakhs of marginalised people belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, backward Classes and women.
Ramesh also disclosed that the legislation to scrap the MGNREGA was introduced only two days ago and the Lok Sabha was adjourned sine die after the bill was pushed through, and the Opposition was not allowed to discuss it properly.
He said that on November 30, during the formal all-party meeting, which was presided over by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, nothing was mentioned about the VB G RAM G legislation.
He said that this all seems to be part of a bigger conspiracy, as first Modi government targeted the Right to Information Act and now the MGNREGA. He warned that next in line might be the Forest Rights Act and Land Acquisition Act, and eventually the government may even fiddle with the Food Security Act.
Accusing the government of running away from discussion on the serious problem of pollution, Ramesh said the Opposition would have provided constructive suggestions on the subject.
He ridiculed the government’s stand that there was no link between death rates and pollution, or that it was in any way linked to lung diseases. He said the Congress would have provided full evidence, but the government simply ran away from the debate, as had been suggested by the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha.
Ramesh also referred to the very short duration of the ‘Winter Session’, which he described as a “pollution session”, and noted how the ruling party insulted Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru during the course of the session.
He pointed out that the BJP leaders began by insulting Tagore over the national song ‘Vande Mataram’; in between, as usual, they insulted Nehru; and in the end, they insulted Mahatma Gandhi by removing a law in his name that guaranteed employment to the marginalised rural people across the country.
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Sofia Babu Chacko is a journalist with over five years of experience covering Indian politics, crime, human rights, gender issues, and stories about marginalized communities. She believes that every voice matters, and journalism has a vital role to play in amplifying those voices. Sofia is committed to creating impact and shedding light on stories that truly matter. Beyond her work in the newsroom, she is also a music enthusiast who enjoys singing.
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