CWC meeting today: Why Congress is turning MGNREGA into its next big political fight

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And it is an opportunity, as it opens up two possibilities for the party. The first is that it dovetails right with the Congress’s social justice pitch and its attempt to get back the votes of the marginalised and rural sections.

After the party underwent a degree of resurgence in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it doubled down on its pitch to the marginalised — Dalits, OBCs, and minorities — with Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s speeches revolving around how the rich and the forward castes had benefitted from the “pro-corporate” and “anti-poor” policies of the Narendra Modi government. However, with its “vote chori (theft)” campaign not gaining much traction, the party will look to shift to a core livelihood issue, believing that getting back to talking about bread-and-butter issues and tying it to what it sees as the dismantling of MGNREGA will be an electorally smart move in a year when four states go to polls: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Assam. The Congress believes that the BJP will be more vulnerable to a direct attack on the livelihood issues of the rural populace than a critique of the Election Commission and allegations of institutional capture by the ruling party.

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Second, a nationwide campaign on the rural job guarantee scheme is likely to be an issue on which it finds common ground with other Opposition parties, including some with which it has had a tetchy relationship, since the new law shifts the financial burden to states. This could breathe new life into the INDIA bloc, which has been practically defunct since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. One such party is the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The TMC-led West Bengal government has already renamed its Karmashree rural jobs programme after Mahatma Gandhi.

Preparing for a pivot

In the week since Parliament approved the VB-G RAM G Act, former Union Ministers such as P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid, and Anand Sharma, and other senior Congress leaders such as Pawan Khera and Rajeev Shukla, have travelled to different parts of the country to publicise the party’s stand on the issue. According to party insiders, top leaders addressed at least 50 such press conferences between December 19 and 22. On December 20, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi released a video statement saying the party was ready to counter the BJP government’s “attack” on MGNREGA.

“If we can create sufficient pressure on the government, this is an issue that they may have to go back on,” said a CWC member.

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Congress leaders said the CWC would discuss how and when to mobilise on the issue, something which it last did to a large degree during Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra from September 2022 to January 2023. The party, by nature, however, is not a cadre-based organisation that is known for its ability to mobilise at short notice. Another challenge is that the party has also found it difficult to sustain its momentum on issues it takes on, from demonetisation and GST reforms to Rafale.

Though it is not yet going to give up its campaign against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and “vote chori”, party leaders admit that it did not find many takers during the Bihar Assembly elections. That explains the pivot to the campaign against the VB-G RAM G Act. “We do hope we can sustain pressure on this issue, and with this hope, we meet on Saturday,” said a leader.