NEW DELHI,12 Jan 2026: The Congress on Monday intensified its MGNREGA Bachao Sangram, with seven lakh party workers observing hunger strike at the party’s district offices across the country.
Party MP Manickam Tagore told a Press conference here that Congress is demanding immediate restoration of the MGNREGA to ensure right to work, right to wages and right to accountability as also reinstatement of the constitutional right to work and an all-India minimum wages of Rs 400 per month.
He said the Modi government has launched four attacks on the right to work by abolishing the legal guarantee of a minimum of 100 days of work per year on demand and this legal guarantee of work has been replaced with grant of work only when the Modi government decides.
Tagore said the rural workers can demand work throughout the year as also a minimum wages while they won’t get work during the harvest season and the wages will be set arbitrarily by the Modi government.
He said this is an attack on the Panchayati Raj as the gram panchayats won’t be able to give work on projects for development of the panchayat as it will be the Modi government that will now decide where and what work will be decided by the government and its favourite contractors.
Tagore said the Centre was paying 100% of the wages under the MGNREGA and so the state governments were able to provide work without worry or difficulty while now the state governments will have to share 40% of the wages, hitting its revenue for development and as such the state governments may not provide work at all.
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