Congress questions if Modi govt wants to scrap welfare scheme like MNREGA

Vasundhara Raje has written to the Centre asking why the MNREGA was a law and not a scheme

Perceiving its cherished employment guarantee scheme MNREGA under threat from the new BJP led government, the Congress has demanded to know from Narendra Modi if it wants to scrap welfare schemes like MNREGA. What has caused additional worry to the Congress is that Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, one of the BJP's powerful chief ministers, had written to the Centre asking why the MNREGA was a law and not a scheme. The Congress alleged that this was a means to ultimately scrap MNREGA in the name of putting the brakes on inflation.

The Congress bolstered its claims by citing how, the BJP led government today had cited the "increased public expenditure on MNREGA" as one of the contributing factors for food inflation at its Conference with Food and Public distribution ministers of states and UTs. Finance minister Arun Jaitley and minister Ram Vilas Paswan addressed the conference.

"Does the Modi government want to move from welfare state by scrapping MNREGA and other rights based legislations like Right to Food? "questioned Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala. The Congress reminded the government that when the MNREGA had been passed as law, the BJP then in Opposition had supported the bill.

"We want to ask whether the Modi government wants to snatch the right of food from common persons (aam aadmi)? Is Modi government going to accept the demand of Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to scrap MGNREGA? Is Modi government against rise in per capita income of people. "Is it against people dietary habits getting better? Have they (NDA) come to power to do business in the name of strengthening the economy," he asked.

Terming the government's moves to rein in inflation as "total failure", the Congress said, "Modi came to power on promises to end price rise and now that has been a total failure of that leadership."