Insult to Mahatma Gandhi: Opposition attacks Centre over new rural jobs law

The Opposition on Monday (December 15, 2025) raised several questions about the new rural employment law that seeks to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, ranging from the rationale behind removing the name of ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ to increasing the financial burden on States and ‘dismantling’ the rights-based architecture of the present law.

Parliament Winter Session: Follow highlights on December 15, 2025

The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025, was listed in the supplementary list of business of the Lok Sabha on Monday (December 15, 2025).

Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka, who chairs the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, said that the government had always intended to end the programme, citing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks that MGNREGA was a monument to the Congress-led UPA’s failure and was a scheme for digging pits.

“I don’t know what problem they have with Bapu’s name. They wanted to finish it because it was a Congress scheme,” he said and added none of the recommendations regularly made by the panel were reflected in the new Bill.

Also Read | Centre to bring new Bill to replace Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

Also Read | Centre to bring new Bill to replace Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

Asked about the government’s move, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi questioned the intention behind removing the ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ prefix. She said, “Whenever the name of a scheme is changed, there are so many changes that have to be made in offices, stationery… for which money is spent. What is the benefit and why is it being done?”

Senior Trinamool Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien termed the government’s move “an insult to Mahatma Gandhi.” “But then, are you surprised! These are the same people who hero-worshipped the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi. They want to insult Mahatma Gandhi and remove him from history,” he said.

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor called the controversy over renaming MGNREGA as “unfortunate”. “The concept of Gram Swaraj and the ideal of Ram Rajya were never competing forces; they were the twin pillars of Gandhiji’s consciousness. Replacing the Mahatma’s name in a scheme for the rural poor ignores this profound symbiosis. His final breath was a testament to ‘Ram’; let us not dishonour his legacy by creating a division where none existed,” he said in a post on X.

Also Read | BJP MPs force adjournment in both Houses of Parliament over alleged threat to Modi

CPI(M) General Secretary MA Baby said that the Centre’s grandstanding over a total revamp of the scheme is an attempt to hide the startling fact that the basic rights-based framework under which it operates is being dismantled.  “The buck is being passed on to States, and the Centre can now punish Opposition-ruled States by cutting down allocations. It will also codify into the law the technological interventions through which lakhs of people are being deprived of their entitlements,” the Left leader alleged. “It will worsen rural distress,” he added.

RJD Rajya Sabha MP and senior leader Manoj K. Jha said that it was one scheme that saved the rural poor from starvation during the pandemic. “I believe that the government is of the opinion that if people die of hunger, let them. Perhaps in a way it is good that they removed Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme’s name,” he said.