Chandigarh, Dec 26, 2025(Yes Punjab News)
Senior Congress leader and former Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Rana KP Singh today said that repealing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is an attack on the constitution of the country as it not only takes away “the right to work” of the rural poor, but also gives all powers to the centre, which were otherwise vested with the local ‘gram-panchayts’.
Addressing a press conference here today, Rana said, repealing of the act is the part of the ideological fight that is going on in the country between the sectarian and divisive forces who want to divide the society in the name of religion, caste and language on one hand and the Congress on the other hand which wants the country to run according to the constitution.
Describing the repeal of the MGNREGA as an attack on the constitution, he said, the act gave the rural poor and the landless the right to work as they could demand work as a matter of right, which the government had to provide at any cost. Now, he added, this will not be the case as there will be no constitutional guarantee for the minimum workdays to the rural poor.
The former Speaker noted that earlier the nature of the work would be decided at the grassroots gram panchayat levels and now it will be decided by the “babus” sitting in Delhi. Besides, he added, while earlier the central government would allocate 90 percent funds and the states had to provide ten percent only, under the new law, states will have to contribute 40 percent against 60 percent by the centre.
The senior Congress leader wondered what was the point and purpose of repealing MGNREGA, which provided constitutional right to people to get work, with a new law, which takes away their right. “Now the rural poor cannot demand work as a matter of right”, he noted, saying “this undermines the basic spirit of the constitution.
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