VB-G RAM G Act: Congress to launch 'MGNREGA Bachao Sangram' from Jan 10

A fortnight after the Centre bulldozed Parliament to repeal the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the Congress party, on Saturday (January 3), signalled its intent to hit the streets demanding restoration of the landmark UPA-era legislation.

A brainchild of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi, the 'MGNREGA Bachao Sangram' is scheduled to kick-start on January 10 with party leaders conducting district-level press conferences across the country to underscore the socio-economic ramifications that the law’s repeal would have on millions of poor and marginalised Indians who found paid employment under MGNREGA since its inception two decades ago.

Also read: MGNREGA renaming row: Why dropping Gandhi is more than a name change

The party will then gradually scale up its programme with panchayat-level chaupals and mass outreach efforts between January 12 and 29, sit-in protests at the grassroots level (wards and blocks) on January 30, the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom, and district-level protests between January 31 and February 6.

Why is it called sangram and not abhiyan?

Subsequently, from February 7 to 15, Congress leaders across state units will ‘gherao’ Vidhan Sabhas, Raj Bhawans or other Central government offices in different states and Union Territories. Unlike the past, when similar prolonged protests organised by the party would conclude with a protest rally in the national capital, the party has decided that the 'MGNREGA Bachao Sangram' would culminate with four zonal mega rallies to be held between February 16 and 25; the venues for each would be declared later.

That the Congress has chosen to call the 45-day plan a sangram (battle) instead of the rather tepid abhiyan (campaign) is meant to signal that the party is willing to take on a more combative approach in the New Year towards the steady chipping away of its rights-oriented legislative legacy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime. An obvious thrust of the protests would also be on the Centre’s decision to scrap a scheme named after the Father of the Nation and replace it with Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act – or the VB-G RAM G Act – that bears the combined leitmotif of Modi’s communal politics and increasingly centralised, anti-federal administrative policies.

Also read: VB-G RAM G Bill | Modi govt bulldozed MGNREGA, says Sonia Gandhi

For the Congress, the protest for MGNREGA’s restoration is also meant to restore the much-needed balance between people-driven, people-centric protests of the past and the more Rahul Gandhi-esque praxis of spearheading campaigns that are aggressive in both tenor and approach – a la ‘vote chori’ and 'Chowkidar Chor Hai' – but fail to strike a chord with the masses beyond the initial social media-driven euphoria.

Call for sustained grassroots campaign

Since the enactment of VB-G RAM G, which practically dismantles the rights-based and need-driven approach of MGNREGA, a section of Congress leaders has stridently professed the view that the party must use the opportunity handed to it by Modi to launch a sustained grassroots campaign that places the common man, particularly from India’s rural regions, and his livelihood at the centre.

“The MGNREGA, which had the undeniable imprint of former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, was the UPA government’s first big step towards realising the ‘Congress ka Haath, Aam Aadmi ke Saath’ slogan that had trumped the much publicised India Shining campaign of Atal Behari Vajpayee and brought us back to power in 2004 when everyone had written us off. By 2009, the MGNREGA had revolutionised employment in rural areas and it was the prime reason that the Congress, for the first time since 1991, had crossed the 200-seat mark in Lok Sabha. Everyone who has benefitted from MGNREGA in the last two decades knows that this law was synonymous with Sonia Gandhi and the Congress and it must now be our endeavour to tell these people that their right was now being snatched away precisely for this reason by Modi,” a senior Congress functionary told The Federal.

Also read: Why Centre's VB-G RAM G spells trouble for states | Talking Sense With Srini

Sources said that the idea to launch a sustained protest programme, starting from the grassroots, to “restore MGNREGA” and “reclaim our legacy”, had come from Priyanka ahead of the Congress Working Committee’s (CWC) meeting held on December 27. The CWC, the party’s apex decision-making body, had endorsed Priyanka’s plan (though she was not present at the meeting due to prior personal commitments) and all members of the committee, including Sonia and party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, had also taken a ‘pledge’ to fight for the legislation’s restoration.

A sizeable section of party's seniors believe that if executed well, the campaign for MGNREGA could not only revive the Congress’s electoral fortunes but also enhance its centrality within the Opposition’s INDIA bloc; nearly all constituents of which had vociferously opposed the law’s replacement with VB-G RAM G during last month’s winter session of Parliament.

Will INDIA bloc parties join?

Congress insiders, however, also caution that the 45-day protest programme is “only half the battle”. The other half, they say, would require the Congress high command to assiduously reach out to INDIA bloc constituents with appeals to not just join ranks against VB G RAM G but also to let the Congress be the face of such an initiative by putting aside their personal grudges against the party.

This, party sources concede, is the more difficult task and one that the Congress high command is yet to put its mind to in full earnest. Though while announcing the MGNREGA Bachao Sangram party leaders KC Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh repeatedly claimed that INDIA bloc constituents would be requested to lend support to the protests, the duo offered no clarity on the kind of support they wish to solicit. It remains unclear whether the party would invite Opposition leaders to share stage at any of the four mega zonal MGNREGA Bachao rallies that the Congress plans to organise next month, or if Opposition-ruled states such as Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Jharkhand and others would respond favourably to the Congress’ suggestion of getting resolutions passed in their respective state assemblies condemning MGNREGA’s repeal.

Also read: VB-G RAM G Bill repeals job guarantee, warns economist Jean Dreze

As of Saturday, none of the INDIA bloc parties had received any request from Congress president Kharge, Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul or Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia to join the MGNREGA Bachao Sangram. Leaders from five INDIA parties that The Federal spoke to said the Congress’ response was “already too late” and that the party “should have started making efforts to get Opposition parties on board for a nationwide campaign as soon as MGNREGA was repealed” but its leaders “typically went into holiday mode the moment Parliament session was over”.

Legal option

With polls due in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Pondicherry between March and May this year, the Congress may also find it difficult to get key Opposition constituents like the Trinamool and the Left parties on board for any joint campaign for MGNREGA’s restoration. The Congress is the principal challenger to the Left alliance in Kerala, though the two sides are allied in Tamil Nadu and Bengal. At least for now, the Congress is also a rival for Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool in Bengal. In such a scenario, neither the Left leadership nor Mamata are likely to reciprocate Congress’s call for cooperation ahead of such high-stakes poll battles even if these outfits individually protest against MGNREGA repeal.

Ramesh and Venugopal have also hinted that the party could take legal recourse to challenge the VB-G RAM G Act on grounds that it possibly violates Article 258 of the Constitution by unilaterally placing on states 40 per cent of the fiscal burden for fund allocation under the redrawn employment scheme. Congress sources, however, say that a legal challenge to VB-G RAM G Act is unlikely to stand in the Supreme Court, which intervenes on legislation only in rare circumstances and invariably presumes the constitutionality of a law enacted by Parliament.

Nonetheless, some in the Congress believe that a robust and multi-pronged campaign for the restoration of MGNREGA would hold the Congress both politically and electorally as the BJP would be more vulnerable to a direct attack on livelihood issues; particularly among the rural populace, than to a critique of the Election Commission and or allegations of institutional capture by the ruling party.

(With inputs from Ubeer Naqushbandi)