‘Centre has snatched away poor’s shield’

Raebareli: Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday launched a sharp attack on the Narendra Modi-led government over the replacement of MGNREGA with a new law, alleging that the Centre has dismantled the poor’s safety net and handed greater control to the bureaucracy.

Addressing the media during his two-day visit to Raebareli, Rahul Gandhi accused the government of prioritising bureaucrats over the rural poor and attempting to centralise power.

He said MGNREGA was designed to provide a source of income to unemployed rural citizens, but the present government was weakening that guarantee in the name of reform.

“MGNREGA was meant to ensure work and dignity for the rural poor. But the Prime Minister does not want that.

He wants to centralise power and hand it over to the bureaucracy. This government is trying to remove the protective shield of the poor and leave them to starve,” Rahul Gandhi said.

He alleged that the new law brought in place of MGNREGA strips away key safeguards and dilutes the original spirit of the employment guarantee scheme. He also criticised the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the Act, calling it an insult to the legacy of a programme built on Gandhian principles of dignity of labour.

The Congress has announced a nationwide “Save MGNREGA” campaign to protest against the changes and to mobilise public support against what it calls the weakening of rural employment rights.