E-Paper
Rahul Gandhi takes dig at PM Modi on MGNREGA
Gandhi used the hashtag – “ModiUturnOnMNREGA” – as he put out a video clip of Modi’s speech in the Lok Sabha after he assumed power in 2014.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “U-turn” on the MGNREGA scheme, and thanked him for allocating an additional Rs 40,000 crore for it.
“The Prime Minister has approved an additional budget of Rs 40,000 crore for the MNREGA scheme created during the UPA era. We express our gratitude to him for understanding the vision of MNREGA and promoting it,” he tweeted in Hindi.
On Sunday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the fifth and final tranche of the Centre’s stimulus package to revive the Covid-19-hit economy. The government allocated an additional Rs 40,000 crore to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), over and above the Rs 61,000 crore budgeted earlier.
The announcement came at a time when the nationwide lockdown has forced migrant workers to walk thousands of kilometres back to their home states.
Gandhi used the hashtag – “ModiUturnOnMNREGA” – as he put out a video clip of Modi’s speech in the Lok Sabha after he assumed power in 2014.
“Do you think I will disband the scheme? My political wisdom does not allow me to do it. This is a living monument of your failures to tackle poverty in 60 years,” Modi had said about MGNREGA in his speech in Parliament in February 2015.
Modi also said that even after 60 years of independence, the Congress had to send people to dig ditches and pay them.
