NEW DELHI: The Congress Working Committee, the highest decision-making body of the party, on Saturday took the oath on five points to launch a nationwide movement from January 5 to fight for the rights-based Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme and opposed a new law enacted in the just concluded winter session of Parliament.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge dubbed the new law as anti-poor step by the Modi government. He told a press conference after a 4-hour CWC meeting in the new party headquarters that the MGNREGP was brought to ensure honour to the rural labourers and even the Government’s Niti Ayog, that replaced the Planning Commission, admitted on December 16 that the programme created the durable assets and increased the productivity.
He said crores would have died but for this programme and so the Congress movement would be alike the farmers’ agitation that forced this government to withdraw three black agricultural laws. He said the Centre’s share is sought to be reduced from 90% to 60%, putting a burden on the state governments for the balance that will leave no money with them for developments.
Lok Sabha Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi claimed the new law is a one-man show of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as it was conceptualised by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) without the knowledge of the concerned Agriculture Minister and the Union Cabinet. He said this is a clearcut decimation of the Indian labour.
Rahul also urged all opposition parties to join the movement to be launched by the Congress from January 5. He said it is like the “note-bandi” that Modi carried out without consulting anybody. Neither the state governments nor Panchayats were consulted on the new law that will lead to the concentration of power in the hands of the Centre harming the nation.
He said the MGNREGA conceptualised by Sonia Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh was to give the rights-based law to ensure the minimum wages to the rural poor. Kharge said Modi seems to have an allergy to the name of Gandhi that he removed the law devoted to Mahatma Gandhi since Gandhis in the Congress though not related to Mahatma Gandhi makes Modi squirm.
