Bengaluru, 27 Jan

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his Deputy DK Shivakumar, Congress General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala, party MPs and MLAs on Tuesday took out a “Raj Bhavan Chalo” protest march over the “repeal” of MGNREGA.

The leaders marched towards Lok Bhavan, the official residence of the State Governor, as part of the protest against the Centre’s move to replace the rural employment guarantee MGNREGA with VB-G RAM G.

They submitted a memorandum to Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot.

They alleged that the Union government was dismantling the rural employment guarantee framework and curtailing the rights of Panchayats.

“MGNREGA was the right of the people, but not anymore. Around 5 crore people, including the differently-abled, were getting employment in the rural areas. The Centre now wants to decide what work should be done, whereas earlier it was done by Panchayats,” Siddaramaiah told protesters.

Under the UPA-era Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Siddaramaiah claimed that each Panchayat was earlier getting around Rs 1 crore. Now they will be deprived of it.

Accusing the BJP of attacking rural India, Siddaramaiah said, “Gandhiji said unless villages develop, the nation cannot develop. By scrapping MGNREGA, the BJP has killed Mahatma Gandhi once again.”

He called upon people for agitation in every village across the State.

Surjewala, who is also the Congress’ Karnataka in-charge, said: “I urge the Karnataka government to rename Panchayat centres as Mahatma Gandhi Kendra.”

Shivakumar later said that the Congress heeded Surjewala’s suggestions and said the government would rename all Panchayat’s after Mahatma Gandhi.

At the protest, Shivakumar warned of political consequences for the BJP, saying, “People in rural areas will not accept VB-G RAM G, and they will not pardon the BJP for repealing the employment guarantee law.”

According to the memorandum, one of the key objections is the shift in funding responsibility.

Under the MGNREGA, the Centre bore the entire wage cost, whereas the new law requires states to shoulder 40 per cent of the burden.

It further stated that the new law takes away the demand-driven nature of rural employment.

The Congress also objected to provisions linking rural employment works to centrally designed plans such as the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan, arguing that this centralises control and sidelines Panchayats.

The memorandum also raised concerns over the introduction of mandatory digital and biometric requirements, warning that such conditions would exclude poor, illiterate and digitally unaware rural workers.

It also flagged uncertainty over wage fixation, stating that the new law does not guarantee payment of minimum wages and allows regional variations within states.

The memorandum termed the introduction of a 60-day “no-work” period during sowing and harvesting seasons as a move that would divide farmers and labourers, noting that agricultural cycles vary widely across regions and crops.

The Congress also called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Cabinet to apologise for what they described as an attack on employment security.