G RAM G Bill tabled in LS, Oppn asks why Bapu's name removed

The Union government on Tuesday introduced a bill that seeks to guarantee 125 wage days of rural work a year and replace the two-decade-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the Lok Sabha amid strong objections by the Opposition on the removal of the father of the nation's name from the scheme.

- HT correspondent

The House witnessed an uproar soon after Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), or VB-G RAM G Bill, 2025, with Congress lawmaker Priyanka Gandhi Vadra saying the bill reflected "personal ambition, obsession and prejudice" rather than public interest.

"Mahatma Gandhi is not from my family, but he is like a member of it, and the entire country feels the same way. Such bills which are inspired by someone's personal ambition, obsession and prejudice should neither be presented nor be passed," the Wayanad MP said.

Registering her strong objection to the bill, the Congress MP questioned the government's repeated renaming of welfare schemes, arguing it leads to unnecessary expenditure. "The need for this government to change the names of the schemes is incomprehensible. Whenever the name of a scheme is changed, the government has to spend extra money," she said.

The VB-G Ram G Bill proposes a guarantee of 125 days of wage employment per rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work, up from 100 days of work provided under MGNREGA.

"Even though the days of employment have been increased from 100 to 125, there is no mention of an increase in wages," Gandhi Vadra said.

The opposition members also came to the Well of the House, holding up photographs of Mahatma Gandhi.