BJP slams Sonia Gandhi over her article accusing Centre of bulldozing MGNREGA
NEW DELHI: A day after President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the VBGRAMG Bill, turning it into a law, the Bharatiya Janata Party launched a sharp attack on Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sonia Gandhi over her recent article criticising the changes. Gandhi had accused the Modi government of bulldozing MGNREGA, a charge the BJP strongly rejected. Amit Malviya, national head of the BJPs Information and Technology wing, responded with a detailed rebuttal on X, describing Sonia Gandhis article as 'a flight of political fancy'. He wrote, Sonia Gandhis recent article on MGNREGA reads less like a serious engagement with law or data and more like a flight of political fancy. According to Malviya, the article showed that she had not read the VBG RAM-G Act, as her arguments were based on mischaracterisations, selective memory, and outright falsehoods. In his post, Malviya accused Gandhi of romanticising the origins of MGNREGA by claiming it emerged from widespread consultation. This is far from the truth. MGNREGA was conceived and driven by the National Advisory Councilan unelected executive body that functioned, in effect, as a super-cabinet. So dominant was its role, that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was frequently derided as a super cabinet secretary under Sonia Gandhis NAC. Contradicting her claim that demand-based employment was being dismantled, Malviya said the legal guarantee remained intact. Sonia Gandhi claims that demand-based employment is being dismantled, thereby destroying the employment guarantee itself. The facts say otherwise. The legal right to employment remains untouched. What has changed is the budgeting frameworkfrom an open-ended, reactive model to a norm-based system, which is how virtually all government schemes function. Has the Modi Government Bulldozed MGNREGA? Or Repaired It? Sonia Gandhis recent article on MGNREGA reads less like a serious engagement with law or data and more like a flight of political fancy. It is evident that she has not read the VBG RAM G Act, because her arguments pic.twitter.com/ffyUAhmS5M Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) December 22, 2025 Defending the new law, he added, Far from weakening the guarantee, employment has been strengthened from 100 days to 125 days. In FY 202425, planned allocations closely tracked actual demand, demonstrating that disciplined planning works. Rejecting Gandhis assertion that MGNREGA continues to be the backbone of rural survival and that the new law would suppress rural wages, Malviya argued that rural India had evolved. This ignores how rural India has changed. While MGNREGA did play a role in alleviating distress, it has not kept pace with todays rural realities. NABARD and MPCE data show that 80% of rural households report higher consumption, 42.2% report higher incomes, and 58.3% now rely exclusively on formal credit. He maintained that MGNREGA now acts as a safety net rather than the centrepiece of rural livelihoods. He further challenged Gandhis warning that the poorest would be abandoned under the revised framework. The claim that the poorest will be abandoned if the old framework changes is equally misleading. Rural poverty has fallen sharplyfrom 25.7% to 4.86%. MSME credit has tripled since 2014, enabling self-employment and non-farm livelihoods. Public policy cannot be frozen in the conditions of 2005 when India has demonstrably moved forward, he said. On the allegation that the Centre was shifting the financial burden to states by moving from a 90:10 to a 60:40 funding model, Malviya called the claim incorrect. Demolition of MGNREGA to have catastrophic consequences: Sonia Gandhi This, too, is false. MGNREGA was never funded at 90% by the Centre in practice. States already bear 25% of material costs, major administrative expenses, and 100% of unemployment allowanceoften without predictability or transparency. The new model simply formalises and rationalises funding, making states equal partners rather than passive implementers of top-down mandates. Malviya also addressed concerns over a 60-day work restriction, saying it had been misrepresented. He noted that Gandhi portrayed it as an attack on year-round employment, but argued that it was flexible and state-notified. In reality, this period is aggregated, flexible, and state-notifiednot a blanket ban. It protects agricultural operations during sowing and harvest, prevents labour shortages, allows workers to earn higher seasonal farm wages, and still expands the overall employment guarantee to 125 days. He emphasised that decentralisation remained central to the new framework. Under the VBG RAM G Act, all works originate from Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans approved by Gram Sabhas. What is being dismantled is fragmentation and opacitynot decentralisation. Launching a direct attack on Gandhi, Malviya accused her of ignoring long-standing problems within MGNREGA. Congress MP Jairam Ramesh announces public agitation campaign to repeal abolition of MGNREGA What Sonia Gandhi pointedly ignores are the systemic failures that plagued MGNREGA for years: Rs 193.67 crore misappropriated in 202425 alone, with recovery of barely 5.32%; fake works existing only on paper; machinery replacing labour; and digital attendance systems bypassed across 23 states. These are not minor lapsesthey are deep structural flaws. He went on to claim that reforms under the Modi government had produced tangible improvements. Between FY 201314 and FY 202526, womens participation rose from 48% to 56.74%; Aadhaar-seeded active workers increased from 76 lakh to 12.11 crore; workers on APBS grew from zero to 11.93 crore; geo-tagged assets expanded from none to over 6.44 crore; and e-payments surged from 37% to 99.99% Malviya asserted. The bottom line is clear. This is not demolitionit is overdue repair. The real choice is not between compassion and reform, but between paper guarantees that under-deliver and a modern framework that actually works. VBG RAM G is not a retreat from social protection; it is renewal and expansion for a changing India. Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge claims VB-G RAM G act undermines MGNREGA's rights-based framework
10 C
