MGNREGA: Haryana Congress leaders detained for holding protest march

The Chandigarh police on Wednesday detained Leader of Opposition in state Legislative Assembly Bhupinder Singh Hooda, HPCC president Rao Narender Singh, party incharge BK Hariprasad, and Congress MPs Deepender Hooda, Varun Chaudhary, Satpal Bhramchari, and Jai Prakash, besides several MLAs, for holding a march against the state government.

The leaders were taken to Sector 3 police station.

Earlier, hundreds of workers across the state thronged the party office in Sector 9 to take part in the march against the changes to the MGNREGA scheme.

As soon as Hooda and Deepender reached the party office, workers started raising slogans against the Modi government. The march was stopped close to the party office, where the police had put up barricades. As workers tried to remove barricades, the police resorted to a mild lathicharge.

Hooda alleged that the BJP government had undermined the rights of Dalits, backward classes, the rural population, and panchayats, but the Congress stood with MGNREGA workers. “The response to a question in Parliament revealed that over 8 lakh MNREGA workers were registered in Haryana. However, in 2024-25, the government provided 100 days of work to only 2,100 families. The government neither provided work nor compensation as outlined in the scheme,” he said.

“This means the BJP had already virtually abolished the scheme in Haryana. Now, with the name change, the scheme has been wiped out,” he added.