An important meeting of Congress Working Committee (CWC) is taking place in Delhi. In this meeting, big leaders of the party are preparing to make a strategy to intensify the attack on the Modi government regarding the MNREGA scheme. Recently, Parliament passed the Developed India-Guarantee for Employment and Livelihood Mission (Rural) Bill, 2025, which has completely replaced the UPA government’s flagship scheme MNREGA. The President has also approved this law.
For Congress, MNREGA was a big achievement, which provided 100 days of guaranteed employment to the poor in villages. Now in the new law, the number of employment days has been increased to 125, but the burden of funding has been put more on the states. There are some other changes too, which Congress is saying are against the poor.
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What problem does Congress have with VB-G RAM G?
The Congress party says that this is an attempt to weaken the scheme and removing the name of Mahatma Gandhi is also wrong. Congress had achieved some success in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, but their ‘vote theft’ campaign in the recent Bihar elections has been a flop. Now the party wants to focus on common issues like employment and poverty.
What opportunity is Congress looking for?
There are elections in 2026 in states like Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where there are more rural voters. Congress feels that by attacking MNREGA it can weaken BJP. Apart from this, the new law will cost more to the states, hence other opposition parties like TMC can also come along. This may give a new lease of life to the India alliance.
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Now what are the further preparations?
Leaders associated with the Congress party say that a plan for a nationwide movement will be made in the meeting. Last week, Congress leaders held several press conferences and Sonia Gandhi released a video attacking the government. Congress says that if pressure is applied then the government may step back.
Congress hopes this law will be withdrawn
The challenge for Congress is to maintain pressure on the issues for a long time. Congress had earlier tried to create similar pressure on Rafale or GST but that issue was also rejected by the public. Now Congress is preparing a plan to corner the Center on the policy of MNREGA.
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Can the government withdraw the decision?
The BJP government has changed decisions on several occasions under pressure from the opposition and public movements. Despite having a strong majority in the government in the year 2021, the central government had withdrawn 3 agricultural laws. Farmers were sitting on strike and pressure from the opposition also played an important role.
Due to the huge year-long agitation by farmers and opposition from the opposition, Prime Minister Modi announced their return in November 2021. These were repealed in Parliament. This is called a big U-turn of the government. The BJP government has done this even before 2021. The government had also withdrawn the Land Acquisition Amendment Ordinances of 2015.
The government has withdrawn proposals like Broadcasting Bill, Lateral Entry Recruitment Advertisement and indexation benefits in the budget. Now Congress is hopeful that if pressure is applied once again, the government may withdraw from the decision of replacing MNREGA with VB-G RAM G.
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