Photo credit- PTI
New Delhi: Recalling how the “united resistance” mounted by farmer led protests forced the Central govt to roll back the three farm laws, leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi on Thursday called out to MGNREGA workers to take the path shown by the farmers by putting up a united fight to demand the withdrawal of the new law – Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act.Referring to the BJP and the Central govt, Gandhi said, “Here is the only way to stop them, workers have been shown the way by farmers. I know these people, they are cowards. If we all stand together, they will be forced to restore MGNREGA,” he said, citing the example of farm laws. He was speaking at the ‘MGNREGA workers convention’ organised by the opposition party at Jawahar Bhawan in Delhi that brought together workers and activists from various states.Gandhi alleged the idea of BJP behind the new law that replaced MGNREGA was to dismantle “the “guaranteed right to work and right to demand work” and enable “centralisation” where the “Central government will decide where the money will be allocated, and naturally, the BJP-ruled states will get more and the Opposition-ruled states less”.“These people want to take India back to pre-independence days where one King used to decide everything,” he alleged. At the meet, Gandhi along with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and other senior leaders stood in solidarity with workers who shared their concerns and fears about the new law and raised slogans. Adorning the traditional labourer’s ‘gamchha’ on their head and holding spades on their shoulders, Kharge and Gandhi also posed with workers who in a symbolic gesture brought soil from their respective MGNREGA worksites and added it to tree saplings in what was seen to convey a message of unity and collective struggle.The Congress plans to build on the message by reaching out to gram sabhas and hold larger outreach programmes under its ongoing ‘MGNREGA Bachao Sangram”.Kharge alleged that the dismantling of MGNREGA by the Modi govt was part of a “conspiracy to erase Mahatma Gandhi’s name from public memory”and an attempt to turn the oppressed and downtrodden people of the country into “bonded labourers”. He said the party will raise the issue during the upcoming Budget session of Parliament.Gandhi claimed that scrapping of MGNREGA amounted to an attack on the Constitution, the same way the Modi govt had attacked it by bringing in “three black farm laws, demonetisation and the flawed implementation of the GST” and this new law now. “What is the name of this new law ….I don’t know,” Gandhi said. In response some in the audience spoke out saying “VB-G RAM G”.
