Not demolition but overdue repair: BJP rebuts Sonia Gandhi’s allegations on VB-G RAM G Act

New Delhi: The BJP on Monday termed Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s claims about the VB-G RAM G Act a “flight of political fancy” and alleged that her arguments against the law rest on “mischaracterisations, selective memory and outright falsehoods”.

The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, which replaces the MGNREGA, became an Act with President Droupadi Murmu’s assent on Sunday.

Parliament passed the Bill during its just-concluded Winter Session last week, amid vociferous protests by the Opposition in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Criticising the law, Gandhi said the “demolition” of the historic Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) will have catastrophic consequences for crores of people across rural India and called upon all to unite and safeguard the rights that protect everyone.

In an editorial in ‘The Hindu’ titled “The bulldozed demolition of MGNREGA”, the Congress Parliamentary party chairperson also said the “death” of MGNREGA is a collective failure.

Hitting back, BJP IT department head Amit Malviya said on X, “Sonia Gandhi’s recent article on MGNREGA reads less like a serious engagement with law or data and more like a flight of political fancy.”

“It is evident that she has not read the VB-G RAM G Act, because her arguments rest on mischaracterisations, selective memory, and outright falsehoods,” he charged.

In a point-by-point rebuttal, the BJP leader alleged that Gandhi in her article “romanticised” the origins of MGNREGA, claiming that it emerged from widespread consultation, but it’s “far from the truth”.

“MGNREGA was conceived and driven by the National Advisory Council -- an unelected executive body that functioned, in effect, as a super-cabinet. So dominant was its role that (then) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was frequently derided as a ‘super cabinet secretary’ under Sonia Gandhi’s NAC,” he alleged.

It’s “historical revisionism” with Gandhi presenting this process now as participatory democracy, he charged.