New Delhi: Congress President Sonia Gandhi said that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought the Modi government full circle and in the face of an economic slowdown, the government was “obliged to fall back” on UPA’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
In a column for The Indian Express, Gandhi highlighted the benefits of the flagship rural relief programme and termed it a “shining example of a radical and rational systemic change.” The Congress matriarch added that a government that sought to denigrate it has come to “reluctantly rely on it.”
“Along with the Public Distribution System put in place by an earlier Congress government, it is the mainstay for our poorest and most vulnerable citizens in preventing starvation and destitution wherever implemented in letter and spirit, especially in today’s COVID-19 crisis,” she wrote.
Sonia Gandhi further claimed that upon assuming office PM Modi had realised that shutting down the scheme was not practical and instead he sought to deride it by terming it “a living monument of your failure”.
