Gaga over MGNREGS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reported jibe at the Congress in Parliament, alleging the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was "a monument to the Congress' failures" had party MPs squirming in their seats.

So, when the very next day there was a generous allocation for the same employment guarantee scheme in the Budget, former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram did not lose the opportunity to hit back at the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government. "If indeed the MGNREGS was a failure, why the allocations?" he asked. "And, why is it that there is so much demand for jobs under the scheme from the poor in Gujarat? Gujarat should not have implemented it," he said.