Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is in Anantpur to mark a decade of the job guarantee scheme.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter questioning his "political wisdom" on what he says is the government's turn around on the UPA government's flagship rural employment guarantee scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme or MGNREGA.
Yesterday, on the eve of the programme completing a decade, the Modi government had issued a statement saying, "The achievements of a decade are a cause of national pride and celebration." The statement also said the last financial year had seen a 'revival' of MGNREGA. The government will focus on simplifying the procedures and build sustainable assets to benefit the poor in the coming years, it said.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha last year during the budget session, Mr Modi had described the programme as a living monument of the Congress's failure to tackle poverty. "Do you think I will put an end to the scheme? My political wisdom does not allow me to do it. This is a living monument of your failure to tackle poverty in 60 years...I will continue with the scheme," he had said.
The scheme was launched exactly 10 years ago by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi as NREGA from Bandlapalli village of Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh. Mr Gandhi is a attending a function there today to mark the occasion.
His office had earlier re-tweeted a tweet from the Congress's official twitter account that said the scheme had reduced poverty by nearly one-thirds. "MGNREGA reduced poverty by up to 32% & prevented 14 Mn people from falling into poverty, as per a MoRD report 2015" the Congress had tweeted.