VB-G-RAM-G bill controversy: Congress leader P Chidambaram said – Removing Mahatma Gandhi’s name from MNREGA is his second murder.

Chennai. Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Sunday said that removing Mahatma Gandhi’s name from MNREGA is the “second murder of Mahatma Gandhi”. He said that Congress’s protest will continue until the former Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is reinstated. Addressing a press conference here, the former Finance Minister said, “The party will go from door to door, from village to village to expose this fraud and our struggle will continue until this Act is repealed.”

On December 18, Parliament passed the VB-G Ram Ji Bill, 2025 amid opposition protests. President Draupadi Murmu approved this bill on Sunday. The bill aims to replace the 20-year-old rural employment law ‘MNREGA’ and ensure 125 days of employment per financial year to every rural household.

Chidambaram said, “According to me, this is the second assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. He was assassinated on January 30, 1948. They have killed Mahatma Gandhi again – they have erased his memory.” He said, ”You can try to erase Gandhi and Nehru from official records, but they are as alive as Buddha or Jesus in the deep consciousness of the people of India. No government order can erase them.”

Chidambaram said the changes made by the Center had turned a “demand-based entitlement into a discretionary scheme”, thereby depriving the poor in rural areas of guaranteed employment. “Under the Basic Law, if a person demanded work, the government was legally bound to provide it,” he said. Now, people can ask for work only if the government first offers them work.

The senior Congress leader also questioned the names being used by the government for the titles of the new bills, which he described as “Hindi words written in English letters”. Chidambaram said names like ‘Developed India – Ji Ram Ji’ were “misleading and difficult to understand” for people in rural areas of South India.

He said, “Maybe even the ministers do not understand the meaning of these names. The law says that unless the states use this name, they will not get the funds.” Chidambaram claimed that the scheme – which was once universal – will now be limited to ”districts” selected by the Centre.

He also claimed that unlike the original structure of MNREGA, which extended to every rural district, the new law is no longer national level and will not include urban or nagar panchayat areas. The senior leader alleged that the responsibility of financing was being shifted to the states as earlier the central government used to bear the entire payment of wages and 75 per cent of material expenses.

He said that a “standard” has been set in the new policy, following which states will have to contribute based on their “economic capacity”. Chidambaram said, “If a state says it does not have funds, the scheme will not be implemented there.” He also said that there has been a huge decline in budgetary support.

The Congress leader said, “Four years ago the allocation was Rs 1,11,000 crore. It is Rs 86,000 crore for the last three years. Next year it is only Rs 65,000 crore. Any expenditure above Rs 65,000 crore will be the responsibility of the state government. Chidambaram said the withdrawal of MNREGA would hurt the “extreme poor” section the most, especially daily wage laborers and women.

He said, “This scheme is a safety net for 12 crore people dependent on daily wage labour. 90 to 95 percent of workers in Tamil Nadu are women, who will suffer the most.” Chidambaram reminded that the original Act was passed unanimously in Parliament in 2005 with the support of the BJP. He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had once called MNREGA a “living monument” of the failures of the UPA government. Chidambaram said, “Now the same government is ending it.”