Top Cong leaders to deliberate in CWC meet on action plan against govt on G RAM G law

New Delhi, Dec 26 (PTI) Top Congress leaders will meet here on Saturday to deliberate on the current political situation and the party's action plan against the government after it replaced the MGNREGA with the new VB-G RAM G law.

This will be an extended meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the Congress' highest decision-making body, where chief ministers of Congress-ruled states of Karnataka, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh, besides presidents of Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) will be present.

This would also be the first meeting of the CWC following the Bihar poll debacle.

The meeting, which comes ahead of next year's assembly polls in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, is expected to deliberate on its strategy.

The opposition party is expected to finalise its agitational plan against the government over the repeal of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005.

The Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill to replace the UPA-era MGNREGA was passed in Parliament in the recently concluded Winter session and President Droupadi Murmu has already given her assent to it.

The Congress and other opposition parties have taken strong exception to the new law replacing MGNREGA, saying it is an insult to Mahatma Gandhi as his name has been removed.

The new law makes a statutory guarantee of 125 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to undertake unskilled manual work.

However, instead of a central scheme, the new law provides that the Centre and the states will have to share a 60:40 per cent ratio funding of the scheme.

Within six months from the date of commencement of the VB-G RAM G Act, states will have to make a scheme consistent with the provisions of the new law. PTI SKC SKC KSS KSS