HYDERABAD: Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy announced on Saturday that the Congress party will intensify its agitation in the state from January 5th against the repeal of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which was implemented by the Congress-led UPA government in 2005. He stated that MGNREGA is a constitutional right to work, rather than a welfare scheme, and warned that the BJP-led central government would face public anger if it replaced it with the VB-G RAM G scheme.
Revanth Reddy attended the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in Delhi. Chaired by AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge, the meeting was attended by senior leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi, as well as the chief ministers and other senior officials of the three Congress-ruled states. Party sources said the discussions focused on the central government’s decision to abolish MGNREGA and its wider political and social implications.
Revanth said that the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) had announced a program of agitation in villages against the repeal on Sunday, and these would be intensified from January 5th.
Speaking during the meeting, he said that there is immense anger across the country over the repeal of this historic law. He stressed that MGNREGA was created to alleviate hunger, ensure livelihood security for rural families, and create durable assets in villages, and that weakening it would adversely affect millions of poor families. Revanth said, “People are angry over the repeal of MGNREGA, and the Modi government will have to face the consequences.”
After the meeting, Revanth announced on X that the Congress had decided to launch a nationwide “Save the MGNREGA Scheme” movement starting January 5th. He said that this decision was taken unanimously by the CWC, the party’s highest decision-making body, and would include massive agitations and protests across the country to save the scheme named after Mahatma Gandhi.
The CWC strongly condemned the central government for abolishing MGNREGA, calling the move an attack on the rights of the rural poor. The committee resolved that the employment guarantee program must be protected and implemented effectively in its true spirit, and tasked party units in the states with mobilizing people for the campaign.
Revanth Reddy was joined by Congress General Secretary K.C. Venugopal, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, senior leader Harish Rawat, former Union Minister Salman Khurshid, and MPs Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Rajiv Shukla during the interaction.
Party sources said Revanth Reddy also raised issues related to organizational preparations for the 2026 assembly elections in five states, including West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. The discussions included strategies to counter alleged vote theft during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls and political and economic issues that the party considered important.
