VB-G RAM G Act is not demolition of MGNREGA but overdue repair: BJP rebuts Sonia Gandhi's allegations

The BJP on Monday (December 22, 2025) termed Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's claims about the VB-G RAM G Act a "flight of political fancy" and alleged that her arguments against the law rest on "mischaracterisations, selective memory and outright falsehoods". The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, which replaces the MGNREGA, became an Act with President Droupadi Murmu's assent on Sunday (December 21). Parliament passed the bill during its just-concluded Winter Session last week, amid vociferous protests by the Opposition in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Criticising the law, Gandhi said the "demolition" of the historic Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) will have catastrophic consequences for crores of people across rural India and called upon all to unite and safeguard the rights that protect everyone. In a column in The Hindu titled ‘The bulldozed demolition of MGNREGA’ , the Congress parliamentary party chairperson also said the "death" of MGNREGA is a collective failure. Hitting back, BJP IT department head Amit Malviya said on X, "Sonia Gandhi's recent article on MGNREGA reads less like a serious engagement with law or data and more like a flight of political fancy." "It is evident that she has not read the VB-G RAM G Act, because her arguments rest on mischaracterisations, selective memory, and outright falsehoods," he charged. In a point-by-point rebuttal, the BJP leader alleged that Ms. Gandhi in her article "romanticised" the origins of MGNREGA, claiming that it emerged from widespread consultation, but it's "far from the truth". "MGNREGA was conceived and driven by the National Advisory Council - an unelected executive body that functioned, in effect, as a super-cabinet. So dominant was its role that (then) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was frequently derided as a 'super cabinet secretary' under Sonia Gandhi's NAC," he alleged. It's "historical revisionism" with Ms. Gandhi presenting this process now as participatory democracy, he charged. Dismissing Ms. Gandhi's claims that demand-based employment is being dismantled, thereby destroying the employment guarantee itself, Mr. Malviya asserted that the legal right to employment remains untouched under the VB-G RAM G Act. "What has changed is the budgeting framework - from an open-ended, reactive model to a norm-based system, which is how virtually all government schemes function," he said. "Far from weakening the guarantee, employment has been strengthened from 100 days to 125 days. In FY 2024-25, planned allocations closely tracked actual demand, demonstrating that disciplined planning works," he said. The BJP leader said Ms. Gandhi's argument that MGNREGA remains the central pillar of rural survival and that the new law will suppress rural wage growth ignores how rural India has changed. While MGNREGA did play a role in alleviating distress, it has not kept pace with today's rural realities, he claimed. "NABARD and MPCE data show that 80 per cent of rural households report higher consumption, 42.2 per cent report higher incomes and 58.3 per cent now rely exclusively on formal credit," Mr. Malviya said. "MGNREGA today functions as...

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