Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for undermining the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and its workers. He supported the recommendation for a fixed ₹400 daily wage and 150 days of work annually per household. Kharge referred to a parliamentary committee’s suggestion to increase MGNREGA wages, which was backed by a high-level committee led by former rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha.
Kharge, who highlighted that Congress introduced MGNREGA to benefit the poorest families, accused Modi of being "anti-poor" and pointed out that workers have been removed from the scheme following the implementation of Aadhaar-based payments. He also criticized the BJP government for allocating the lowest MGNREGA budget in the past decade.
While in 2015, Modi called MGNREGA a "living monument" of the previous Congress-led UPA government's failures, the scheme's budget grew from ₹33,000 crore in 2013 to ₹86,000 crore in 2025-26. This month, the parliamentary committee recommended fixed wages for MGNREGA workers.
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