Chandigarh: Punjab Congress will launch a mass movement across the state to, what it held, save the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) from Gurdaspur on January 8, 2026.
Briefing newspersons in the context on Monday, the party state president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring alleged that the new scheme replacing the MGNREGA is also like a black law. He said the BJP was trying to snatch the livelihood of lakhs of rural poor and the marginalised by scrapping the MGNREGA, which had otherwise transformed the rural employment and economy.
Warring held that the main difference between the MGNREGA and the new law is that the former guaranteed 100 days of work to the rural poor. He said, anyone could demand work as a matter of constitutional right, which the government was bound to provide.
Warring also criticised the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the state for its failure to provide work under MGNREGA. He said, now the AAP government was trying to hide behind the new law of the BJP. He said the special session was just an eyewash as the AAP had betrayed the rural poor already by failing to provide 100 days of work under MGNREGA.
Giving details, he said, in Punjab, only 42 % work was provided under MGNREGA under the AAP rule. He said, this was because of the inefficiency of the government, which could not provide the 10% matching grant to the 90% grant provided by the Centre till now.
The PCC president said that the new law will be more devastating for Punjab as now the state will have to provide 40% share against 10% earlier.
