As the curtain comes down on 2025, the BJP’s battle with the Congress-led Opposition has flared up in the wake of the government’s move to replace the two-decade-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA with Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) or VB-G RAM G Act.
The MGNREGA, 2005, enacted by the then Congress-led UPA government, provided a statutory right for 100 days of unskilled work annually to every rural household across the country. Repealing it in the face of the Opposition’s resistance in the last week of the winter session of Parliament, the government has enacted the G Ram G Act, 2025, which rejigs the wage guarantee framework while seeking to provide unskilled jobs in rural areas for 125 days in a year.
Striking off Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the new legislation is only one part of the story which has drawn criticism. The BJP defends it by saying that “pujya Bapu ji” also wanted to bring about a “Ram Rajya” and that the new law’s title is marked with “Ram”.
The UPA government added Mahatma Gandhi to its rural job law NREGA in 2009, when it returned to power, in order to align it with Gandhi’s goal of “wiping the tears of the last person”.
The new law’s reference to Ram (as an acronym) seems to be a calculated move to remind people of the BJP’s continuing association with Ram even after the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Former Prime Ministers P V Narasimha Rao and V P Singh used to say that while they could fight their political opponents, it was not easy to take on Ram in a country where people are deeply religious.
The MGNREGA had been associated with the Congress, particularly with the Nehru-Gandhi family – and the repeal of this landmark scheme is bound to sharpen the battle lines between them in the coming year.
The MGNREGA was the brainchild of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC). In 2004, when the UPA came to power, she gave up prime ministership, choosing to appoint Dr Manmohan Singh as the PM. However, she took charge of the NAC set up by the government to advise the PM on various social and development policies. She was given a Cabinet rank and an office to help the government implement the UPA’s Common Minimum Programme. The BJP attacked the NAC for being an “extra-constitutional authority”, which comprised prominent activists, economists, former bureaucrats, and intellectuals.
When the NAC members called on Dr Singh immediately after their first meeting on July 17, 2004, he asked them about their morning’s deliberations. They told him about their discussions on two proposals, right to employment and right to information, on which activist Aruna Roy and economist Jean Dreze had been working.
While Dr Singh was concerned about the cost of the job guarantee scheme, he went along with the NAC’s recommendations, ensuring its enactment.
Providing a legal basis to right to work was seen as Sonia’s “masterstroke”. She went on to ensure a rights based framework for the UPA, pushing the passage of legislation related to right to information, right to education, and right to food. It was such measures which helped the UPA return to power in 2009.
The scrapping of the MGNREGA has dealt a blow to the Congress, which was reflected within Parliament and outside as the Congress, led by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, held protests along with other Opposition parties against the government’s move. A key question now is whether the Congress would be able to widely mobilise public opinion against the BJP over this issue.
It is not unusual for the BJP to rename various schemes, roads or institutions after its icons or ideas in order to leave its imprimatur on them. So, Aurangzeb Road was renamed A P J Abdul Kalam Road, Raj Path became Kartavya Marg, and the new complex housing the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) as part of the Central Vista project will be named “Seva Teerth”.
And yet, the BJP did not undo the MGNREGA for 11 years after storming to power, knowing its significance for the rural poor.
Successive Indian PMs knew that it was not possible to win elections without the support of the poor. Indira Gandhi clinched the 1971 elections by a landslide on the plank of her “Garibi hatao” slogan. Narendra Modi, too, has known this – he made a reference to the “poor” in his first speech after being sworn in as the PM in June 2014, pressing ahead with his outreach to the underprivileged, extremely backward classes and Dalits.
It is not clear why the government decided to do away with the MGNREGA, which may have an impact on the rural poor. Last year, this scheme was available only for 50 days nationally on an average.
While the MGNREGA was a demand-driven programme, the G Ram G scheme will depend on the “supply” of allocations to be determined by the Centre, which proposes to increase the workdays to 125.
Also, unlike the MGNREGA, which was essentially financed by the Centre, the funding of the new scheme will be shared between the Centre and the states in the ratio of 60:40 (barring the Northeastern and hilly states and Union Territories). With several states reeling from a financial crisis, experts fear that they may not be able to fully fund their share, which could result in average workdays dipping below 50. If the fiscally constrained states are not able to pay for their share, the Centre may also pull back, which, experts say, could “depress” rural wages.
The Opposition has also alleged that the Centre may not be “even handed” in funding the G Ram G scheme and may “disfavour” states ruled by the non-BJP parties.
The row has surfaced at a time when the government is grappling with a challenging trade situation amid mounting pressure from US President Donald Trump that India should open up its farm sector, which it has resisted so far. Some influential quarters in the country are pitching for fast-tracking a trade deal with the US. However, the farm lobby has been up in arms against any opening of the agricultural sector to cheaper American products.
The new law has also allowed for a 60-day pause in the workdays during the peak agricultural seasons, which may also not go down well with farm workers.
While the G Ram G law may have its appeal, the BJP has upped the ante by overhauling the rural job scheme, which concerns a large section of the country’s workforce. Sensing an opportunity, the Congress is set to mount a nationwide campaign over the row.
(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of ‘How Prime Ministers Decide’.)