SHILLONG, Jan 9(NNN): The Congress party in Meghalaya has announced plans to stage a series of agitations from January 10 to February 25 against the BJP-led NDA government’s decision to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB G RAM G) Act, 2025.
“We are planning to have a series of agitations. On that front, we are working. They have done away with MGNREGA and they are going to implement the VB-G RAM G scheme. I think it is totally that they are obsessed with the name of Mahatma Gandhi, as you all know, and they want to communalise this,” said Meghalaya Congress chief Vincent H Pala after chairing a party meeting on Thursday.
Pala alleged that the new scheme is designed to take away the rights of the poor and follows a “supply-driven” rather than a “demand-driven” approach, unlike MGNREGA.
“The question of guarantee does not arise in the new Bill actually. For example, earlier in MGNREGA, if you want a job you demand from the competent authority and they have to give it within 15 days and if they do not give, they are bound to pay. But in the new Bill, if you want a job, they will send it to the Centre and the Centre will sanction the amount and it is up to them whether they will give it or not,” he explained.
The Congress leader accused the BJP government of diluting the implementation of schemes, including MGNREGA, and using unreliable technologies such as Aadhaar-based and geo-tagged systems.
“They used Aadhaar-based, geo-tagged and lots of technologies which are not reliable as of today. For example, in Shillong, you get proper internet but in rural areas, you will not get internet. By not getting the internet, they have done away with the rights of the people,” Pala said.
The party plans to hold agitations at the zonal, district and state levels, with details to be announced on January 10 through a nationwide press briefing.
“We will expose them one by one. They will do a little bit of fasting at the district level and we will do agitations at the zonal, district and state level also,” Pala added.
