“Stop Erasing Gandhi From Rural India,” Priyanka Gandhi Roars as Shivraj Chouhan Fires Back: “This Is How We Will Build Ram Rajya”

Delhi: The Lok Sabha witnessed a fiery political showdown on Tuesday as the Opposition went on an all-out offensive against the BJP government over its move to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025. The debate quickly turned into a high-voltage face-off between Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Union Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, symbolising a larger ideological battle over welfare, federalism, and the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi.

Leading the Opposition’s charge, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra accused the government of being “obsessed with renaming” schemes while hollowing out their original intent. Speaking with visible anger, the Wayanad MP said she could not understand why a law that carries Mahatma Gandhi’s name and guarantees livelihood security to the poorest was being dismantled and repackaged.

“For years now, you have been cutting funds to MGNREGA,” Priyanka Gandhi said on the floor of the House. “Go to any village, go to any labourer, and they will tell you the same thing — payments don’t come on time, work is reduced, and the scheme is being slowly strangled. And now you bring a new law to replace it altogether.”

Calling the proposed legislation “against the very essence of the Constitution,” Priyanka demanded that the bill be sent to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed scrutiny. She warned that the new framework weakens grassroots democracy by taking decision-making power away from elected gram panchayats.

“The right of the gram panchayat to decide where funds are allocated and what work is needed in the village is being snatched away,” she said. “This bill centralises power, weakens local self-governance, and undermines the spirit of decentralisation that our Constitution stands for. From every perspective, this bill is wrong.”

As Opposition MPs raised slogans and protested in the House, Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan rose to defend the government’s move, pushing back sharply against Priyanka Gandhi’s allegations. Rejecting claims that the BJP was abandoning Gandhian principles, Chouhan said the government “believes in Mahatma Gandhi and lives by his ideals.”

“We are not removing Gandhi,” Chouhan said amid loud sloganeering. “We are strengthening villages. We are giving more days of work, a legal guarantee, and a clear framework for rural development. This law will help realise Mahatma Gandhi’s dream.”

Taking the ideological argument further, the senior BJP leader invoked a civilisational vision to justify the bill. “We will establish the Ram Rajya that Mahatma Gandhi dreamed of,” Chouhan declared, drawing sharp reactions from Opposition benches. He insisted that the new legislation was aimed at holistic village development and livelihood security, not at weakening workers’ rights.

According to the government, the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025 provides a statutory guarantee of 125 days of wage employment every financial year to rural households whose adult members are willing to undertake unskilled manual work. States will be required to align their schemes with the new law within six months of its implementation. The financial burden will be shared between the Centre and the states, with a 90:10 ratio for northeastern and Himalayan states, 60:40 for other states and Union Territories with legislatures, and full central funding for UTs without legislatures.

However, for the Opposition, the numbers and assurances fail to mask what they call a deeper political motive — replacing a rights-based employment guarantee rooted in social justice with a centrally controlled scheme branded under the BJP’s “Viksit Bharat” narrative. For the BJP, the bill represents reform, expansion, and a new vision for rural India.