Congress to Launch Nationwide Stir from Anantapur over MGNREGA Renaming
AP Congress leaders inspected arrangements for the protest programme at Bandlapalli on Friday.
Anantapur:Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, along with senior leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, will launch a nationwide protest on February 2 against the NDA government’s decision to drop Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the NREGA scheme. The protest will be launched from Bandlapalli village in Anantapur district, where the scheme was first rolled out on February 2, 2006, by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and the then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhar Reddy.
Bandlapalli occupies a significant place in India’s social welfare history as the launch site of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), initially known as NREGA. Implemented in 200 districts at the time, the Act guaranteed 100 days of unskilled manual work to rural households to enhance livelihood security. Passed in 2005, it made the right to work a legal entitlement and focused on the creation of durable assets such as water conservation structures and rural connectivity.
Congress leaders said the party had decided to launch protests across the country from the same village to underline the historical importance of the scheme and oppose what they termed the erasure of Mahatma Gandhi’s name.
The NDA government has recently replaced and rebranded the programme under a new law titled the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-G RAM G Act).
Calling the move “deeply offensive”, Congress senior leader and former Union minister Chinta Mohan said rebranding MGNREGA amounted to “killing Mahatma Gandhi again”.
AP Congress leaders inspected arrangements for the protest programme at Bandlapalli on Friday.
