Gathering during the National MGNREGA Workers’ Convention organised by the Rachnatmak Congress, in Delhi on Thursday, January 22, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The campaign against the new rural employment guarantee legislation, The Viksit Bharat- Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025, will be decentralised, unlike the 13-month-long farmers’ agitation, which was stationed at Delhi’s border.
The first round of protests will be held on Republic Day across the country. It is one of the four days in a year that gram panchayats have to be mandatorily held. NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, a coalition of NGOs and unions working with MGNREGA workers, has given a call to ensure that during this meeting, the gram panchayats move a resolution against the new legislation.
“The new legislation has diluting powers of gram panchayats in many ways, including having a say in what work should be done and where. The new law makes the rural employment programme like any other centrally sponsored scheme where decisions are top down,” Nikhil Dey, one of the founding architects of MGNREGA and founder member of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, told The Hindu.
The government has been using the gram sabha platform to familarise the workers with the new Act. Three days after the legislation was passed in Parliament, the Ministry of Rural Development had directed all State governments to conduct special gram sabhas in every gram panchayat by December 26 last year to discuss the salient features of the Act.
Escalating the campaign against the new law, the NREGA Morcha has called for a Mahapanchayat in State capitals on February 2, coinciding with what would have been the 20th anniversary of the launch of MGNREGA. At these gatherings, the resolutions passed by various panchayats will be tabled. Mr. Dey said the campaign to restore MGNREGA has the potential to be the “largest decentralised agitation” in the world.
“The campaign to restore MGNREGA is going to be unlike the farmers’ agitation or even the protests against the labour codes. It will be far more decentralised and widespread because the workers are spread across the country,” he added.
On Thursday, the NREGA Sangarsh Morcha in close coordination with the Congress had organised a national convention of workers, which was addressed by both Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi. More than 300 workers from across the country participated in the event.
A NREGA Sangharsh Morcha activist said that the two movements cannot be compared because the MGNREGA workers and farmers belong to two very distinct economic classes.
“For the half-a-day national convention, many workers travelled for the very first time to Delhi, many of them reaching directly to the venue since their trains were delayed, many travelling by metro for the first time. Even crossing the turnstile at metro station was a novel experience for them,” the activist said.
Published – January 23, 2026 09:22 pm IST
