The Congress on Tuesday said it will hold protests across the country on Wednesday against the Centre's rural employment bill VB-G RAM G that seeks to replace MGNREGA, claiming it was a "BJP-RSS conspiracy" to dismantle a rights-based welfare scheme and attack Mahatma Gandhi's legacy, workers' rights and federal responsibility.

KC Venugopal, in a letter to all state Congress presidents, urged them to organise protests at all district headquarters. “These protests must be held with portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, symbolising resistance to the erasure of his name and values, and highlight how the proposed law will impact the crores of beneficiaries of MGNREGA,” he said in the letter.

"The combined attack on Gandhiji's legacy, workers' rights and federal responsibility exposes a larger BJP-RSS conspiracy to dismantle rights-based welfare and replace it with charity controlled from the Centre," Venugopal said.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday took a sharp swipe at the BJP-led Centre while opposing the VB-G RAM G Bill in the Lok Sabha, invoking a 1971 Bollywood song to criticise the government’s move to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

Quoting the song “Dekho o deewano (tum) ye kaam na karo, Ram ka naam badnaam na karo”, the Thiruvananthapuram MP said the proposed legislation was not a minor administrative change but an “assault on the very spirit and philosophical foundation of this crucial programme”.

Tharoor called the bill a “deeply regrettable and retrograde step”.

He said Gandhi’s vision of Ram Rajya was a socio-economic blueprint rooted in village empowerment and Gram Swaraj.

"The original Act, by bearing his name, acknowledged this profound connection -- that true employment guarantee and upliftment must flow from the grassroots, embodying his principle of the last person first. To remove the name of Mahatma Gandhi is to strip the bill of its moral compass and historical legitimacy," Tharoor said.

John Brittas, a CPI (M) MP in the Rajya Sabha from Kerala, said that this is not reform; it is a rollback.

"VB - G RAM G Bill quietly dismantles MGNREGA - not by repeal alone, but by redesign. A demand-driven legal right to work is reduced to a centrally controlled, budget-capped publicity scheme that pushes costs onto States, dilutes federalism, drops mandatory reservation in the Central Council, legally bans work for 60 days, and replaces Gram Sabha-led planning with PM Gati Shakti, GIS maps, dashboards and central templates", he wrote on X.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday criticised the government’s proposed bill to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), warning that it would weaken the law’s assurance of 100 days of employment for the poorest households.

She said the government had added provisions that only superficially suggest an increase in workdays. "But has the wage rate been increased?" she asked.

"For so many years, you (government) have been reducing funds for MGNREGA, wherever one goes, labourers will say money has not come," she said.

She also raised concerns over the shifting of decision-making powers away from local bodies.

Speaking to reporters in the Parliament House complex, the Congress general secretary also questioned what she described as the Modi government’s “obsession” with renaming welfare schemes.

The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday amid strong opposition protests over the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the rural employment law.

Later, the opposition members also trooped to the Well of the House, holding up photographs of Gandhi and expressing their disapproval of the "removal" of the name of the Father of the Nation from the proposed legislation.

Introducing the bill, Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the Centre believed in and followed Gandhi’s principles. "The (Narendra) Modi government has done more for rural development than previous governments," he said.

Within six months from the date of commencement of the VB-G RAM G Act, states will have to make a scheme consistent with the provisions of the new law.