A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi mocked the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) as a “monument to Congress failures,’’ Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday set aside Rs. 34,699 crore for the programme with the promise that Rs. 5,000 crore would be thrown in if additional resources are mobilised from tax buoyancy.
As he held out the conditional promise, a murmur went up in the Opposition benches which on Friday witnessed Mr. Modi ridiculing the Congress for launching a programme like MGNREGS.
“Mallikarjun Kharge [Congress leader] should be pleased,’’ Mr. Jaitley said, referring to the former Union Minister objecting on Friday to Mr. Modi’s uncharitable remarks.
But the irony was not lost on the chattering classes as was evident on social media platforms where questions were raised on why the government was pumping in more money into a programme that the Prime Minister had “trolled’’ a day before.
Replying to the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, Mr. Modi had said in the Lok Sabha that he would keep MGNREGS alive.
“I may not have experience but all of you will grant me political skills and that acumen has told me to keep it alive as a monument to your failures since Independence. After 60 years, you are still making people dig holes. I will celebrate it with pomp and splendour.’’
Disdain For Nikhil Dey of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, the promise of additional allocation was no salve to make up for the “kind of disdain’’ the Prime Minister showed for the programme.
Taxation 
