The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025, which seeks to replace the 20-year-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with a new scheme guaranteeing 125 days of rural employment annually, amid intense protests by the Opposition.
The bill was cleared by a voice vote after an eight-hour debate, even as Opposition members raised slogans, trooped into the well of the House, tore copies of the bill and flung them towards the Chair.
Speaker Om Birla adjourned the House for the day following the passage of the legislation. Friday is the last day of the Winter Session.
Replying to the debate, Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the Modi government was committed to upholding Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals through various welfare initiatives.
"Congress killed ideals of Bapu, NDA ensured Bapu lives through pucca houses built under the PM Awas Yojana, Ujjwala yojana, Swachh Bharat Mission, Ayushman Bharat," Chouhan said while listing government schemes aimed at the poor.
The Opposition has accused the government of insulting Mahatma Gandhi by removing his name from the rural employment programme and of diluting the spirit of the 2005 law.
According to the new bill, every rural household whose adult members volunteer for unskilled manual work will be entitled to a statutory guarantee of 125 days of wage employment in a financial year.
States will be required to frame their own schemes in line with the Act within six months of its commencement.
Earlier in the day, several Opposition MPs staged a protest march within the Parliament House complex against the bill.
Carrying a large banner reading ‘Mahatma Gandhi NREGA’, they marched from the Gandhi statue at Prerna Sthal to Makar Dwar, raising slogans against the government.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, DMK leaders K Kanimozhi, T R Baalu and A Raja, IUML’s E T Mohammed Basheer, Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Arvind Sawant and RSP’s N K Premchandran were among those who took part. Senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi also joined the protest at Makar Dwar.
"The Modi government has not only insulted the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, but has also crushed the right to work, which was instrumental in bringing about socio-economic transformation in India's villages," Kharge said in a post on X in Hindi.
"Against this tyranny of the ruling dictatorial government, we will fight from Parliament to the streets," he added.
In another post, Kharge said, "This is not merely a case of renaming MGNREGA; rather, it is the systematic murder of the world's largest employment scheme." Speaking to reporters, he asserted that the government was taking away people’s right to work and said "there will be a nationwide movement against it".
Venugopal, speaking to reporters, said, "Today, Parliament is witnessing the murder of democracy. By removing the name of Mahatma Gandhi from NREGA they are trying to kill the democratic values as well as the ideology of the Father of the Nation."
The House was also scheduled to take up a discussion on air pollution in the Delhi National Capital Region later in the day, which was to be initiated by Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, but the proceedings were adjourned following the uproar over the bill.
