Chouhan attacks Cong. by referring to ‘scams’ in job scheme in Yadgir and Kalaburagi

Alleging that the Congress has been spreading lies about the VB-G RAM-G Act as it wil end the party’s “game of commission”, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday trained his guns on “corruption and irregularities” in implementation of MGNREGA in Yadgir and Kalaburagi districts.

The Union Minister’s attack came hours after the commotion over Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot refusing to read State’s allegations over the VB-G RAM-G Act in his address to the joint session of the State Legislature. Incidentally, Kalaburagi is the home district of AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and his son and RDPR Minister Priyank Kharge is in-charge of the district.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr. Chouhan displayed media reports on a few men disguising as women by wearing sarees to illegally claim wages to the tune of ₹3 lakh under the MGNREGA scheme through false identity.

Cases of irregularities

“There were 3,551 cases of irregularities where the work had been done only on paper. Though the Congress government could have recovered ₹ 107.78 crore that had been illegally paid in such cases, it did nothing,” he alleged.

Even the CAG, in its report, had referred to such scams in the job scheme and recommended recovery of ₹24.12 crore. But the Congress government in Karnataka recovered only ₹2.47 crore, he alleged.

Mr. Chouhan said his Ministry had conducted an inquiry following complaints and it had shown that instead of persons, machines had been used in execution of 21 works in five village panchayats of Aland in Kalaburagi district in 2024-25.

He sought to brush aside allegations that the Narendra Modi-led government had failed to provide emphasis to the job scheme. “A total of ₹48,549.82 crore has been sanctioned to the scheme by the Narendra Modi government so far to Karnataka alone as against ₹8,739.32 crore given by the erstwhile UPA government,” he said.

He maintained that the Karnataka Governor could not have read the full text of the speech before the legislature as it was full of lies about VB-G RAM-G Act. “When the Governor refused to speak lies, the Congress misbehaved with him,” Mr. Chouhan alleged and demanded action against the culprits.

Orientation

Mr. Chouhan later conducted an orientation session on the new job scheme for the legislators, MPs and prominent leaders of the BJP and JD(S). Union Minister H. D. Kumaraswamy too attended the orientation session.