Congress to launch drive over ‘weakening’ of rural job scheme

The Congress would soon launch a statewide public awareness campaign against the Centre for renaming and diluting the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), said Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president Vinay Kumar here today.

Kumar, in a press statement issued here today, stated that this is not just an issue of renaming the scheme, but is a direct attack on the livelihood of people living in the rural areas of the country.

He said that as a part of this campaign, Congress workers would go door to door and would tell the people about the highlights of the scheme such as timely payment of wages, number of workdays and its positive impact on local development so that the truth behind the “misleading propaganda” of the central government could be exposed.

Kumar said that along with this, the party would also stage multiple protests, demonstrations and would submit memorandums to the Centre to ensure this step of the central government is withdrawn.

He said that Congress would expose the shortcomings of the new scheme in all panchayats of the state and would bring forth the true opinion of the rural population through public consultations. “During this process, extensive dialogue programmes will be organised by involving panchayat representatives, labour organisations, women’s groups as well as the youth,” said Kumar.

He said that during the All-India Congress Working Committee’s meeting, serious concern was expressed on this issue. He said that during the meeting, AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi stated that there was a need to launch a nationwide campaign against this anti-people decision of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government. “The Congress believes that tampering with the structure of MGNREGA and attempting to reshape it under a new name and framework is part of a policy aimed at weakening rural employment security and benefiting a few selected capitalists,” he said.