Agartala, Tripura: In a significant political move, the Tripura Pradesh Congress leadership launched a mass hunger strike on Sunday at the foot of the Mahatma Gandhi statue near the Agartala Circuit House. The protest, led by senior Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman and TPCC President Ashish Kumar Saha, aims to pressure the Central Government to withdraw the newly enacted Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (VB-G RAM G) project and immediately reinstate the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Addressing the media, Sudip Roy Barman criticized the “VB-G RAM G” bill, alleging it is a deliberate attempt to erase the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and weaken the rights-based employment guarantee for the rural poor. The Congress leaders argued that the transition from MGNREGA to the new framework transforms a legal right to work into a discretionary welfare scheme, placing an unfair financial burden on state governments and reducing local autonomy.
The hunger strike is part of a wider nationwide campaign by the Indian National Congress to protect rural livelihoods and the federal structure of employment schemes. Prominent leaders and party workers gathered in large numbers, raising slogans against the “anti-poor” policies of the BJP-led government, demanding that the original, demand-driven nature of MGNREGA be restored to ensure financial security for millions of workers in Tripura and beyond.
