"The idea is to reduce the scheme's coverage and weaken its vital principles like wage to material ratio, to the extent that the scheme becomes very weak and vanishes," AICC spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said.
The offensive came a day after the Centre rubbished protests from activists and experts against rural development ministry's proposed changes to job scheme, like increase in material component by reducing the wage ratio in total expenditure.
"India has never witnessed politics as narrow as being pursued now. Matters of public interest and national interest have had no political boundaries till now," he said, adding, "Just because MGNREGA has UPA's stamp, the Centre is weakening it as part of a plan."
Singhvi said the wage to material ratio is the soul of the job scheme and a higher wage component was important because the welfare scheme seeks to provide more employment. "It is for all the rural poor, not one social group. The changes would hurt all of them," he said.
Rural development minister Nitin Gadkari has announced to change the wage to material ratio from 60:40 to 51:49.
The Congress rebuke followed the rural development ministry's justification of changes through a statement. The ministry claimed the scheme had become a prisoner of political motives and was being protected by a network of vested interests across government, political parties and NGOs.
The ministry quoted a study which claimed that more funds were allocated to a block in Rajasthan where the Congress had a lower vote share and the party's votes increased with higher allocation. Another study said funds in Andhra Pradesh were allocated according to political expediency.
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