New Delhi, Feb 2 (PTI) Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday said the MGNREGA launched by his party’s government two decades ago was the lifeline of the poor but the “arrogant” Modi government snatched it away.
In a post on X, he said the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was not just an administrative scheme but a constitutional right for crores of labourers.
“Exactly 20 years ago, the Congress Party’s UPA government launched the scheme from Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh. The Government of India has so far spent nearly Rs 10.63 lakh crore on MGNREGA, which has helped MGNREGA workers get food twice a day, educate their children, access healthcare, prevent migration, and free them from exploitation.
“Through MGNREGA, a total of nearly 4,879 crore person-days of employment have been generated. As a result, nearly 10.10 crore rural assets have been created,” he said in his post in Hindi.
Kharge said nearly 40 percent of panchayats’ expenditure is on MGNREGA, which has brought to life Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of ‘Gram Swaraj’.
“Today, the arrogant and anti-poor Modi government has snatched away the lifeline of crores of poor labourers! “Under the nationwide ‘Save MGNREGA Campaign’, the Congress Party will continue to raise the voice of our labourers and workers, and this tyrannical government will have to bow down! MGNREGA will have to be reinstated,” he asserted.
The Congress has launched a nation-wide campaign to bring back MGNREGA and is staging protests against the VB-G RAM-G Act which has replaced the previous law. PTI SKC SKC DV DV
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