With Lok Sabha elections only a few weeks away, the lies and rhetoric of the Congress party have reached its zenith. Now, Congress General Secretary of Uttar Pradesh East Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has targetted the Modi government with false claims over MGNREGA payments.
In a hurry to target the Narendra Modi led government, Nehru-Gandhi Parivar scion Priyanka Gandhi Vadra resorted to false claims stating that the Narendra Modi government deliberately delayed the payments under MGNREGA scheme.
She further claimed that payments to the labourers were not paid in over six months. Priyanka Gandhi also attacked PM Modi over the dilution of UPA era scheme MGNREGA and said that PM Modi only works to help industrialists.
Liar @priyankagandhi, 85% of MNREGA payments in 2017-18 were done within 15 days.
In 2013-14 under your momma’s rule, only 34% payments were done within 15 days.
Modi govt removed 1 crore fake job cards & 3 crore fake beneficiaries enrolled by UPA. Who was taking that money? https://t.co/gJUJg7HMqJ
— Chowkidar Spaminder Bharti (@attomeybharti) March 29, 2019
However, the facts suggest that all the claims of the Gandhi scion Priyanka Gandhi are false as MGNREGA scheme has been actually strengthened despite the fact that the Modi government criticised it in the past.
Since 2014 there has been a gradual increase in employment generation under MGNREGA except for one year in 2014. In 2013-14, nearly 220.36 crore person-days generated and saw an increase in 2017-18 to 234.26 person-days in 2017-18. This indicates that there is no decrease in demand for work under the programme.
Second, Priyanka Gandhi claimed that payments are being delayed deliberately by the Modi government and labourers are not being paid for over six months now. However, when we checked the official records, the data revealed information contrary to what Priyanka Gandhi claimed. The information suggests that the generation of payment of wages within 15 days has increased under the Modi government as nearly 85% of payments in FY 2017-18 have been disbursed within 15 days as against only 34% during in 2013-14 under UPA government. In the year 2018-19, the payments generated within 15 days is actually 91% of the total payments.
Addition to this, the total fund available under MGNREGA in the year 2018-19 is Rs.71,805 crores as against Rs.33,000 crores during UPA government in 2013-14. The Modi government has also brought major reforms with respect to bringing transparency in disbursing funds to labourers with JAM trinity. As far as today, nearly 99% of the funds of the MGNREGA funds are being transferred directly to the accounts of the beneficiaries cutting huge leakages and exclusion-inclusion errors that existed during the time of the UPA government.
Priyanka Gandhi has been indulging in delivering such erroneous statements during her election rallies. On her Amethi tour on Thursday, when asked about her opinion about Mission Shakti, Priyanka Gandhi stated that from matchbox to missiles, everything in India today has been given by Congress.
Recently, Priyanka Gandhi put herself in an embarrassing situation after she offered a used garland on the statue of Lal Bahadur Shastri. In a video shared by Union Minister Smriti Irani, Priyanka Gandhi was seen wearing two garlands, who then walked up to the statue of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and offered one of the used garlands to pay respect for Shastri’s statue without even realising that she had insulted Shastri Ji instead of respecting him by offering a used garland on his statue.
