Days after endorsing an X user’s post that compared him with Rahul Gandhi and criticised the Congress, MP Shashi Tharoor on Friday reshared a post by Rahul Gandhi attacking the Modi government over changes to the MGNREGA scheme. The move is being widely read as a political balancing act, coming amid internal Congress criticism over Tharoor’s praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his alleged proximity to the BJP, and repeated departures from the party line, including sharp remarks against the Congress itself.

Tharoor highlighted Rahul Gandhi’s post, which condemned the government’s moves on the rural employment programme.

“The #MGNREGA scheme has been one of India’s great development success stories and provides the only social safety net for our rural poor. Demolishing it is a retrograde step that must be reversed.”

Rahul Gandhi’s post on MGNREGA changes

In the post shared by Tharoor, Rahul Gandhi said:

“Last night, the Modi government demolished twenty years of MGNREGA in one day.

VB–G RAM G isn’t a ‘revamp’ of MGNREGA. It demolishes the rights-based, demand-driven guarantee and turns it into a rationed scheme which is controlled from Delhi. It is anti-state and anti-village by design.

MGNREGA gave the rural worker bargaining power. With real options, exploitation and distress migration fell, wages increased, working conditions improved, all while building and reviving rural infrastructure. That leverage is precisely what this government wants to break.

By capping work and building in more ways to deny it, VB–G RAM G weakens the one instrument which the rural poor had. We saw what MGNREGA meant during COVID. When the economy shut down and livelihoods collapsed, it kept crores from falling into hunger and debt.

And it helped women the most - year after year, women have contributed more than half the person-days. When you ration a jobs programme, it is women, Dalits, Adivasis, landless workers and the poorest OBC communities who get pushed out first.

To top it all, this law was bulldozed through Parliament without proper scrutiny. The opposition demand to send the bill to a Standing Committee was rejected. A law that rewires the rural social contract, affecting crores of workers should never be rammed through without serious committee scrutiny, expert consultation, and public hearings.

PM Modi’s targets are clear: weaken labour, weaken the leverage of rural India, especially Dalits, OBCs and Adivasis, centralise power, and then sell slogans as ‘reform’.

MGNREGA is among the most successful poverty alleviation and empowerment programmes in the world. We will not let this government destroy the rural poor’s last line of defence. We will stand with workers, panchayats, and states to defeat this move and build a nationwide front to ensure this law is withdrawn.”

Tharoor’s balancing act? 

Many see Tharoor’s move may be an attempt to counter criticism within Congress.

Many insiders have questioned his alleged closeness to the BJP, praise for Modi, and deviations from the party line, including public slams of Congress itself. Sharing Rahul Gandhi’s post is seen as a tactical effort to reaffirm his loyalty to party positions while maintaining his independent public image.