VARANASI: Senior Congress leader and MP Jairam Ramesh on Sunday condemned the police’s brutal lathi charge on NSUI’s “Save MGNREGA” protest in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi. In a post in X, Ramesh criticised the BJP government, calling it “trouble-engine government” rattled by peaceful, democratic protests.Ramesh wrote, “In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency of Banaras, students, under the leadership of NSUI’s national president and my young colleague Varun Chaudhary, took out a ‘Save MGNREGA’ campaign march. This was a completely peaceful and democratic demonstration carried out under constitutional rights, but the Yogi-Modi trouble-engine government is so rattled by questions that it unleashed a brutal lathi charge through the police.”The post was accompanied by a video purportedly showing police personnel manhandling National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) national president Varun Choudhary during the march. The allegations came amid Congress’s ongoing nationwide protests against the enactment of the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-G RAM G Act), which replaces the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Earlier in the day, Congress workers staged a protest under the banner ‘MGNREGA Bachao Sangram’ at Townhall Park in Varanasi. Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Rai, along with party workers, held a symbolic fast near the statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.Speaking to ANI, Rai said, “We are on a fast. Around the Mahatma Gandhi and Bhimrao Ambedkar statue, we are sitting on a fast. This government ended the MGNREGA law, and to protest that each of our Congress workers is sitting on the streets. We want to remove those who want to remove Mahatma Gandhi’s name.”Rai alleged that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was trying to take away the “rights of the people” and claimed that police were deployed to disrupt the protest, including allegedly stopping opposition leaders at their homes. “They want to even suppress our fast. But still, each of our Congress workers will fight for the rights of the poor people, and we will bring back their rights to them,” he said.Ahead of the proposed NSUI march, Uttar Pradesh Police and paramilitary forces had tightened security arrangements outside the Prime Minister’s public outreach office in Varanasi. All routes leading to the office were placed under strict surveillance.On January 3, the Congress had announced a nationwide three-phase agitation titled ‘MGNREGA Bachao’ following the Centre’s enactment of the VB-G RAM G Act. President Droupadi Murmu recently gave assent to the VB-G RAM G Bill, 2025, marking a major shift in India’s rural employment policy, according to a release from the President’s Secretariat.
