NEW DELHI: Congress MP P Chidambaram on Sunday launched a sharp attack on Centre’s move to replace the MGNREGA, calling the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme the “second killing of Mahatma Gandhi.”
Addressing a press conference in Chennai, Chidambaram said the Congress would continue to oppose the new law until the earlier employment guarantee framework is restored, reported PTI.
“The party will expose this fraud by going from house by house, village by village, and our struggle will continue until this Act is repealed,” he said.
Parliament on December 18 passed the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G Bill), which seeks to replace the 20-year-old MGNREGA and promises 125 days of rural wage employment annually.
Reacting to the change, the former Union finance minister said, “According to me, it’s the second killing of Mahatma Gandhi. He was killed once on January 30,1948. They have killed him again — they have killed his memory again.”
He added, “You can try to erase Gandhi and Nehru from official records, but they live in the deep consciousness of the Indian people, like the Buddha or Jesus. No government order can wipe them out.”
The senior Congress leader argued that the new legislation reverses the nature of the employment guarantee by turning a legal entitlement into a discretionary scheme.
Agencies