Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Thursday alleged that the NDA government at the Centre replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the new VB G RAM G law to ensure cheap labour for big corporates, stripping rural workers of their right to work.

Addressing a meeting of state Congress office bearers at Gandhi Bhavan on Thursday, Revanth Reddy said MGNREGA had ended migration and bonded labour in villages while empowering rural workers to demand employment. “Labour is not available to big industrialists like Adani and Ambani. If MGNREGA is abolished, rural poor will migrate to towns, providing cheap labour to corporates. This is a conspiracy to make rural India subservient, similar to the British East India Company,” he claimed.

The Chief Minister also criticized the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, alleging it is designed to disenfranchise minorities, Dalits, adivasis, and the poor. “If voting rights are removed, citizens lose access to Aadhaar, ration cards, and government benefits. The BJP is trying to force crores of poor into bonded labour by denying them citizenship rights,” he said.

Revanth Reddy termed the replacement of MGNREGA a “corporate conspiracy” orchestrated by the BJP and vowed that Congress would resist the new law with the same intensity as the farmers’ protest against the farm laws. He urged Gram Panchayats to pass resolutions opposing the VB G RAM G law, similar to the resolution already adopted by the Telangana Legislative Assembly. These resolutions will be submitted to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during the upcoming budget session of Parliament.

He announced plans to address nine public meetings across Telangana as part of the campaign against VB G RAM G and expressed hope that senior Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, or Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could participate in a large public rally in February.

Revanth Reddy also criticized the BJP for allegedly attempting to change the Constitution by winning 400 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “BJP’s plan was postponed after Rahul Gandhi and Kharge cautioned the people, but the party is still trying to disenfranchise the poor through the SIR,” he said.

The Chief Minister concluded by urging Congress workers to support Rahul Gandhi as a future Prime Minister and pledged to continue the struggle against laws that he claimed exploit the poor and rural workers.