Trinamool Congress MPs held an overnight dharna in the Parliament complex against the passage of the G RAM G Bill, which they said was 'bulldozed' through both Houses without any discussion.
TMC MPs spent the night at the gate of the Samvidhan Sadan, with banners and portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, slamming the government over the Bill, which replaces the United Progressive Alliance-era Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
"We MPs of the Trinamool Congress have been sitting on a 12-hour dharna. We started at midnight. Our dharna will go on till noon," TMC leader Sagarika Ghose said.
"We are sitting in dharna because of the manner in which the NREGA Act has been destroyed by the Modi government and it has been replaced by the VBGRG Bill. It was given to us just five hours before the government introduced it in the House. The Modi government is using bulldozer tactics to push through legislation," Ghose said.
She said an important bill like the NREGA Bill should have been sent to a select committee for discussion.
"The NREGA Act was giving employment to the rural poor to the rural workers. Therefore by destroying this Bill, the government has attacked the rural poor," Ghose said.
"The Modi government has assassinated Mahatma Gandhi for the second time and it has also insulted Rabindranath Tagore," she said.
A banner at the protest read 'Mahatma Gandhi NREGA. Gurudev gave the title Mahatma'.
Tagore is known ro have given the title of 'Mahatma' to Gandhi. The Parliament on Thursday passed the VB-G RAM G Bill that seeks to replace the 20-year-old MGNREGA and guarantees 125 days of rural wage employment every year amid vociferous protests by the opposition.
Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan asserted that the law was needed to fix shortcomings in the old scheme.
The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha with a voice vote, hours after the Lok Sabha cleared it on Thursday.
Opposition leaders protested over the removal of Mahatma Gandhi's name from the existing rural employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA and accusing the government of putting the financial burden on states. -- PTI
IMAGE: TMC MPs hold a protest over the MGNREGA issue at Parliament premises during the ongoing Winter Session, in New Delhi on Friday. Photograph: Jitender Gupta/ANI Photo
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