Cong leader mocks Centre over rechristening of schemes; claims PM, HM should also be renamed

Patna, Dec 22 (PTI) Taking a swipe at what he described as the NDA government’s tendency to rename schemes, senior Congress leader Rajendra Pal Gautam on Monday suggested that the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister should also be rechristened.

Talking to reporters here, Gautam, the AICC Scheduled Caste Department chairman, alleged that the Narendra Modi government was merely changing the names of existing programmes and projecting them as new initiatives.

"This government only changes names and doesn't do any other work. The time has come for the two people who have mortgaged the government into the hands of two capitalists to be renamed as well,” he alleged, and said the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister should also be given new names.

The Centre is deliberately weakening the MGNREGA by renaming it as Vikashit Bharat–Guarantee of Rozgar and Aajeevika Mission–Gramin (VB-G RAM G), Gautam claimed.

Recalling the origins of the employment guarantee scheme, he said BR Ambedkar had wanted the right to work to be a fundamental right, but circumstances did not permit it at the time.

“Recognising this need, the Congress-led UPA government implemented MGNREGA in 2005 to provide 100 days of guaranteed employment so that people could find work in their villages and no one went hungry,” he said.

The Congress leader alleged that the present government was bent on “completely dismantling this structure” and was “cheating women, labourers and youth in every possible way”.

He further claimed that under the original framework, the Centre bore 90 per cent of the scheme’s expenditure and Gram Sabhas had the authority to decide works based on local needs.

“Although the government claims to have increased employment days from 100 to 125 on paper, it has detached the scheme from the Panchayati Raj system, taken away employment guarantees from workers and centralised the decision-making power with the Union government,” he alleged.

The Congress leader also said that by forcing states to bear 40 per cent of the financial burden, the Centre was pushing states towards a situation where they might not be able to run the scheme at all.

He alleged that the Centre had discontinued several welfare schemes meant for women, students, minorities and youth, while remaining silent on the continuous depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar.

Echoing similar views, Bihar Congress president Rajesh Ram alleged that the present government had “ruined” the scheme by shifting the financial burden from the Centre to the states. PTI SUK NN