Congress MP Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka addresses a press conference at Indira Bhawan, AICC headquarters in New Delhi. File | Photo credit: The Hindu
The opposition on Monday (Dec 15, 2025) raised several questions about the new Rural Employment Act, which seeks to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, from the rationale for removing the name “Mahatma Gandhi” to increasing the financial burden on states and “dismantling” the rights-based architecture of the current law.
Winter session of Parliament: Follow the highlights of 15 December 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 in the Lok Sabha on Monday (December 15, 2025).
Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka, who chairs the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, said the government had always intended to end the scheme, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks that MGNREGA was a monument to the failure of the UPA-led Congress and was a pothole-digging scheme.
“I don’t know what problem they have with Bapu’s name. They wanted to complete it because it was the Congress plan,” he said, adding that none of the recommendations made regularly by the panel were reflected in the new bill.
Also read | Center to bring new law to replace Mahatma Gandhi’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
When asked about the government’s move, Congress president Priyanka Gandhi questioned the intention to remove the prefix “Mahatma Gandhi”. She said: “Whenever the name of the program is changed, there are so many changes to be made in the offices, the stationery … that money is spent on. What is the benefit and why is it being done?”
Trinamool Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien called the government’s move an “insult to Mahatma Gandhi”. “But then you wonder! These are the same people who hero worshiped the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi. They want to insult Mahatma Gandhi and remove him from history,” he said.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor termed the MGNREGA renaming controversy as “unfortunate”. “The concept of Gram Swaraj and the ideal of Ram Rajya were never competing forces; they were the two pillars of Gandhi’s consciousness. Substituting the Mahatma’s name in a scheme for the rural poor ignores this deep symbiosis. His last breath was a testament to ‘Ram’; let us not dishonor his legacy by creating a partition where none existed.
Also read | BJP MPs forced an adjournment in both houses of Parliament over the alleged threat to Modi
CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby said the Centre’s grandiosity over a total overhaul of the system is an attempt to hide the startling fact that the basic rights-based framework on which it operates is being dismantled. “The money is being transferred to the states and the Center can now punish the opposition states by reducing the allocations. It is also codifying into law technological interventions that are depriving thousands of people of their rights,” the Left leader said. “It will worsen rural distress,” he added.
RJD Rajya Sabha MP and senior leader Manoj K. Jha said it was one of the schemes that saved the rural poor from starvation during the pandemic. “I believe the government is of the opinion that if people starve to death, let them. Maybe it’s a good thing in a way that they removed Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the program title,” he said.
Published – 15 Dec 2025 21:23 IST
