New Delhi, Saturday: The Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision-making body, is meeting today at 10.30 AM at Indira Bhawan, New Delhi, to deliberate on key political and organisational issues, with a special focus on the recently enacted VB-GRAM-G Act, 2025, which has replaced the UPA-era Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
This is the first meeting of the CWC after the Bihar Assembly elections, lending added political significance to the deliberations. Party sources said the leadership is expected to discuss both the electoral outcome in Bihar and the broader national strategy in the wake of recent policy moves by the BJP-led central government.
A major agenda item will be the Congress’s response to the renaming and restructuring of MGNREGA, a flagship welfare programme introduced during the UPA government and widely regarded as one of the Congress party’s most impactful legislative achievements. The VB-GRAM-G Act has already received the President’s assent, formally ending the two-decade-old employment guarantee framework associated closely with the Congress legacy.
Senior party leaders believe the issue presents both a political challenge and an opportunity. On one hand, the Congress is under pressure to defend a programme that not only transformed rural livelihoods but also became a symbol of the UPA’s rights-based governance model. On the other, the leadership sees scope to mobilise public opinion by highlighting what it terms the “systematic erasure” of UPA-era welfare initiatives by the BJP government.
According to insiders, the CWC is likely to discuss a multi-pronged strategy, including parliamentary interventions, public outreach campaigns, and coordination with state units to keep the issue alive at the grassroots level. The meeting may also explore legal, policy, and political avenues to challenge or critique the changes introduced under the new law.
The Congress leadership is keen to project itself as a defender of rural employment rights and social security, particularly at a time when economic concerns and job security remain pressing issues across large parts of the country.
The outcome of today’s meeting is expected to shape the party’s national narrative in the coming weeks, especially as it positions itself ahead of future electoral battles.
