Congress to Launch Nationwide Movement to Save MNREGA

CWC Meeting Resolves to Protect Rural Employment Guarantee Act

New Delhi: Mr. Pawan Khera, addressing the journalists, said, “Hello friends. A very important and timely Congress Working Committee meeting was held today, a very long meeting. Everyone expressed their views thoroughly. First of all, I would request Congress President Shri Mallikarjun Kharge ji to begin the press conference.”
Shri Mallikarjun Kharge said, “Respected Rahul Gandhi ji and Jairam Ramesh ji, Venugopal ji, and all my media friends sitting on the stage. I will put a few points before you, and after that, Rahul Gandhi ji will address you, and you will hear his remarks as well.
In today’s CWC meeting, we took an oath that we have decided to launch a very big movement across the country, making the MNREGA scheme the main focus. And in that oath, we put forward our points on five issues… Instead of reading the entire thing, it would be better if it is circulated to you.
“We pledge that the Indian National Congress party, taking a leading role, will launch the Save MNREGA campaign from January 5th.
We will protect the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act – MNREGA at all costs.
MNREGA is not just a scheme, but a right to work granted by the Constitution of India.
We resolve that:
We will unitedly fight for the dignity, employment, wages, and the right to timely payment of rural laborers. We will protect demand-based employment and the rights of the Gram Sabha.
We also pledge that:

We will democratically oppose every conspiracy to erase Gandhiji’s name from MNREGA and to turn the worker’s right into charity.
Having faith in the Constitution and democracy,
We resolve to save MNREGA, save the rights of the workers, and raise our voice in every village.”
With this, we all accepted it by raising the slogan ‘Jai Samvidhan – Jai Hind’.
You know that our leader Rahul Gandhi ji had raised his voice on MNREGA many times in the Lok Sabha. After that, we have also raised this issue many times outside in defense of this law. But we will continue to fight to get this law back… to repeal the new law.” This very government admitted in Parliament on December 16, 2025, that the NITI Aayog study found that MNREGA created durable assets and that it is a productivity-enhancing scheme, and therefore it is very good… Many people have praised it, and it is also mentioned in our CAG report, as well as in our subsequent reports on rural development, and also how it helped migrant workers during COVID. And those who… many people survived, they received the full benefit of it. If MNREGA hadn’t existed, millions of people would have died; this is its greatest contribution. And I want to say here before you that Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Manmohan Singh, and their team, who brought this MNREGA program, transformed the Directive Principles… Article 41 into rights, and gave this to the poor people of the country… It is because of this that the poor people are still alive today; they don’t have to work under anyone. When needed, there was a guarantee of 100 days of work, and sometimes the government also had the right to extend it if necessary. But they have taken all this away. MNREGA has been the biggest help for the poor and vulnerable sections in the villages. From 2011-12 till now, crores of families have received employment.
MNREGA empowered Dalits, tribals, women, and marginalized sections by providing them employment in their own villages… Migration stopped, and infrastructure and environmental protection were strengthened in the villages. Why am I telling you this… because even if they had small-scale farming in their own villages, they benefited from it, and on the other hand, when they didn’t get wages, they would go to work under the MNREGA scheme. But this government has made great efforts to snatch away the rights of the poor, and not only in the villages… all the people who depended on it are very angry today, and this anger will weigh heavily on them. Just as the farmers fought against the three draconian farm laws, we fought alongside them, and in Parliament, Rahul Gandhi and all of us, even members of the opposition parties, joined the fight… That’s why they had to repeal the laws, and the farmers also launched a massive movement, and I am presenting this as an example before you.
That’s why the central government used to pay 100% of the workers’ wages… meaning 90% was paid by the central government and 10% by the state government. Today, it’s 60% from the central government and 40% from the state government. This means a heavy burden, a financial burden, will fall on the state governments, and after this financial burden, there will be no development in the states. And this decision was taken unilaterally… They didn’t consult the state governments, the people, the stakeholders, or even those who will be most affected… meaning the panchayat members, or the taluka or district panchayat members. They didn’t take anyone into confidence before bringing in this law. This law has been brought in only to crush and suppress the poor. That’s why we will strongly oppose and protest against it, and we will continue to fight against it… We will fight on the streets, and in the coming days, we will fight in Parliament as well. We have made this resolution today in the CWC meeting. And when India has become the world’s fourth-largest economy, according to them, then why has the central government destroyed a scheme like MNREGA? Shri Rahul Gandhi said- MGNREGA is just not a work programme. It is a conceptual framework, development framework, that, by the way, has been appreciated across the world. Kharge Ji mentioned that he visited 16 countries and every single country, where he went, appreciated the fact that our government had come out with an entirely new development rights-based concept.
This has been destroyed single-handedly by the Prime Minister without asking his cabinet, without studying the matter. This is an attack on the states of India because they are simply taking away money that belongs to the state, decision-making power that belongs to the state. This is an attack on the infrastructure of those states because MGNREGA used to build infrastructure and this is the decimation of Indian labour because MGNREGA used to guarantee a minimum floor below which Indian labour could not go.
So, it is a devastating attack on the states, on poor people of this country, and it is carried out by the Prime Minister single-handedly, much like ‘Notbandi’ was. It is going to cause tremendous pain to the weaker sections, to the Adivasis, to the Dalits, to OBCs, to poor General Castes, Minorities and it is going to benefit Mr. Adani in full measure. That is the purpose of this to take money away from poor people and hand it to people like Mr. Adani.
And finally, MGNREGA, apart from being a rights-based programme also strengthens our Panchayats. It allowed political action in the Panchayats, it injected money into the Panchayats, it allowed the decision-making power at the Panchayat level. So, this is an attack on the democratic structure, on the third tier of government and on the basic architecture of our country.
As Kharge Ji has said- we are going to resist it, we are going to fight it and I am confident that the entire opposition is going to be aligned against this action.