On Monday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi shared Prime Minister Narendra Modi's old video in which he is seen mocking the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme.
In February 2015, PM had called the scheme as "a living monument of Congress-led UPA government's failures." He had said, "Do you think I will disband the scheme? My political wisdom does not allow me to do it. This is a living monument of your failure to tackle poverty in 60 years." "You had to send people to dig ditches and pay them. With song and dance and drum beat, I will continue with the scheme," he had added.
However, on Sunday, in a bid to generate more jobs in the rural parts of India, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated an additional Rs 40,000 crore under the scheme.
"The government will now allocate an additional Rs 40 thousand crores in the MGNREGS. It will address the need for more work including returning migrant workers during monsoon season," Sitharaman said while announcing the fifth and the last tranche of the economic package announced by the government in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Taking to Twitter, Rahul Gandhi thanked Prime Minister Modi for the additional budget of Rs 40,000 crore for the MNREGA scheme created during the UPA era. "We express our gratitude to MNREGA for understanding and promoting his vision," he added. However, he noted 'Modi's U-turn' on the scheme with #ModiUturnOnMNREGA.
This along with a slew of other announcements came after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced a Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package for the country to become 'self-reliant' and deal with COVID-19 crisis.