‘Mischaracterisations’: BJP after Sonia Gandhi says VB-G RAM G a ‘bulldozed demolition’ of MGNREGA

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday said that Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s criticism of the law that replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was based on “mischaracterisations, selective memory and outright falsehoods”.

On Sunday, the 2025 Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill was given assent by the president, two days after it was passed by Parliament amid protests by Opposition parties. The new rural employment law will replace the MGNREGA.

The MGNREGA was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guaranteed 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

Under the new law, the number of guaranteed workdays will increase to 125, while states’ share of costs will rise to 40%. The Union government will continue to bear the wage component, with states sharing material and administrative expenses.

The legislation has drawn criticism from economists and labour rights experts.

In an article published in The Hindu on Monday, Gandhi wrote that the MGNREGA had been developed through extensive public consultations and that both Houses of Parliament had passed the bill unanimously.

“Over the past few days, the Narendra Modi government worked to bulldoze MGNREGA’s abolition without any discussion, consultation, or respect for parliamentary processes or Centre-state relations,” the Congress leader wrote.

She added: “The removal of the Mahatma [Gandhi]’s name was only the tip of the iceberg. The very structure of MGNREGA, so integral to its impact, has been annihilated.”

The Modi government had destroyed the idea of a legal employment guarantee in the new law, Gandhi said in the article for The Hindu.

“MGNREGA enacted the right to work in all rural India,” she added. “The Modi government’s new bill has restricted the ambit of the scheme to rural areas as notified by the Union at its discretion.”

By “transferring a significant portion of the expense onto the states” through a new funding model, the Modi government was “discouraging states from providing work under the scheme”, Gandhi alleged. “The finances of states, already under severe stress and strain, will be further devastated,” she added.

In response, BJP publicity chief Amit Malviya said that the VB-G RAM G was “not demolition” but an “overdue repair” of MGNREGA.

Malviya said that Gandhi’s claim that the MGNREGA had “emerged from widespread consultation “was far from the truth”. MGNREGA was conceived and driven by the National Advisory Council and “to now present this process as participatory democracy is historical revisionism,” he said.

Malviya said that the legal right to employment remains untouched.

“Far from weakening the guarantee, employment has been strengthened from 100 days to 125 days,” he added. “In FY [financial year] 2024-’25, planned allocations closely tracked actual demand, demonstrating that disciplined planning works.”

The BJP leader said the allegations that the Union government was “shifting the financial burden to states” by changing the funding model, were false.

“MGNREGA was never funded at 90% by the Centre in practice,” he said. “States already bore 25% of material costs, major administrative expenses, and 100% of unemployment allowance – often without predictability or transparency.”

The new funding model “formalises and rationalises funding, making states equal partners rather than passive implementers of top-down mandates”, he added.

Also read:

• BJP chief ministers wanted MGNREGA to include farm work. Modi government’s bill goes another way
• ‘A bill to destroy MGNREGA’: Why experts fear the worst from new job guarantee bill