NEW DELHI: The Congress on Saturday criticised the Modi government after the Union cabinet approved a bill to rename the Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee act (MGNREGA), questioning why Mahatma Gandhi’s name needed to be dropped and accusing the Centre of focusing on rebranding rather than reform. Reacting to the Cabinet decision, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the government was a “dhurandhar” at renaming schemes and laws. “They renamed the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, and the rural LPG distribution programme to Ujjwala. They are experts in re-packaging and branding,” he told PTI. Ramesh questioned the rationale behind the move, saying, “They hate Pandit Nehru but it seems they also hate Mahatma Gandhi. What’s wrong with the name Mahatma Gandhi, why rename the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to Pujya Bapu Employment Guarantee Scheme?”PTI citing Sources said the Cabinet on Friday cleared a Bill to rename the scheme as ‘Poojya Bapu Grameen Rozgar Yojna’ and increase the guaranteed number of workdays from the current 100 to 125 days.Congress general secretary in-charge organisation K C Venugopal said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had earlier described MGNREGA as a “monument of failure”, was now renaming the scheme to claim credit for it. “It’s yet another way of erasing Mahatma Gandhi from our national psyche, especially from the villages, where, he said, India’s soul resides,” he alleged in a post on X. Venugopal also accused the government of neglecting the scheme, saying the renaming was a “cosmetic change”. “MGNREGA workers have been demanding higher wages, but the Centre has been reducing allocated funds for the scheme year after year,” he said, alleging that mounting arrears reflected a “carefully planned strategy to engineer a slow death for the scheme”.“But Mr Modi, rename it all you want, the people know it was Dr Manmohan Singh ji and Smt Sonia Gandhi ji who brought this transformative scheme to every village of India,” Venugopal added.Enacted in 2005, MGNREGA is a flagship rural employment programme that guarantees at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to rural households whose adult members undertake unskilled manual work.