Congress gears up for nationwide ‘Save MGNREGA’ campaign

NEW DELHI — The Congress has launched a coordinated nationwide campaign to oppose what it terms the dilution of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), planning large-scale mobilisations across states and seeking resolutions from over 2.5 lakh gram sabhas demanding restoration of the original right-to-work law. As part of the agitation, the Congress will roll out statewide protests beginning on Saturday in several states, including Uttarakhand and Bihar.

The Congress is preparing one of its largest grassroots mobilisations in recent years as it intensifies its campaign against changes to the MGNREGA framework.

Party leaders allege that the Centre has weakened the rural employment guarantee by diluting the powers of gram panchayats, particularly their authority to determine the nature of work and allocate employment. According to the Congress, this undermines the Act’s core promise of providing rural households a legal right to demand employment when needed.

In Uttarakhand, the party has announced a statewide agitation against what it describes as the replacement of MGNREGA with the Viksit Bharat G Ram G Rural Act.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Political Affairs Committee, chaired by Uttarakhand Congress incharge Kumari Selja. The meeting was held at a hotel on Rajpur Road in Dehradun.

On January 10, the party will hold district-level press conferences across Uttarakhand to highlight the implications of the new framework and contrast it with the employment guarantees provided under MGNREGA. Congress leaders claim the changes will adversely affect rural livelihoods and weaken decentralised governance.

In Bihar, the Congress will launch a ‘Save MGNREGA’ campaign targeting what it calls the Modi government’s anti-MGNREGA policies. Party workers will undertake village-to-village outreach to raise awareness among rural communities.

Leaders said the campaign would span grassroots mobilisation as well as legislative action, with the party prepared to raise the issue from the streets to the state Assembly.

According to Congress insiders, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) has instructed all state units to take the agitation deep into rural areas. A key component of the campaign is to ensure that over 2.5 lakh gram sabhas across the country pass resolutions demanding the reinstatement of the original provisions of MGNREGA.