New Delhi: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the world’s largest such guarantee for 100 days of work in rural areas, was repealed by parliament at midnight as the Rajya Sabha passed the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) which repeals the United Progressive Alliance-era (UPA-era) law on December 19, on the eve of the end of the winter session.The bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha at 12.32am following an about six-hour long debate which only started after 6.40pm on Thursday (December 18) evening. The bill was passed in absence of the opposition, which staged a walkout after their demand for the legislation to be sent to a select committee was defeated by a voice vote. Opposition members protested in the well of the house prior to the walkout, and which was not shown on Sansad TV during Union minister for agriculture Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s reply, which kept the camera wholly focused on the minister. Earlier on Thursday, the bill was passed by the Lok Sabha amid protests from the opposition.Outside parliament, opposition parties then sat on a dharna after the bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha, and said Gandhi had been insulted.Inside parliament, after the bill’s passage, Union parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju made no mention of why the bill was brought for discussion so late in the day in the Rajya Sabha, or the reasons for the urgency for it to be passed on the second last day of the winter session. Instead, Rijiju condemned the opposition’s behaviour.“At 6pm we spoke to the opposition and we gave four hours to this bill. The opposition wanted 8 hours, to which we agreed. Then they requested that leader of opposition Mallikarjun Kharge be given 25 mins to speak, we agreed, the chair gave him almost 37 mins. After that they tore papers, raised slogans, sent their members behind the treasury benches and misbehaved,” said Rijiju.“Prime Minister Narendra Modi always tells us that we should always be ready for discussion. Lok Sabha had listed their calling attention (on air pollution) but it could not be done because of their behaviour. The way they have behaved, the states that have chosen them, I want to tell them, their representatives are not raising their voice and violating rules, which I condemn.”Earlier on Thursday, opposition members in the Lok Sabha erupted in protest after speaker Om Birla refused to heed to their demand to send the bill to a select committee. Opposition members tore up papers in protest, as Birla went ahead and called for the bill to be put to vote which was passed within minutes by voice vote, and the house adjourned for the day. Later Chauhan accused the opposition of turning democracy into a mob rule and said that parliamentary decorum had been “torn to shreds.”In the Rajya Sabha, vice president and chairperson C.P. Radhakrishnan only informed members that the bill will be taken up for discussion at 5pm, 8 hours had been allotted and asked those who wanted to submit amendments to do so by 5.45pm. As opposition members raised objections that the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) had not allotted time for the discussion in the house, Radhakrishnan cited previous bills as “convention” that were taken up for discussion without consulting the BAC. Incidentally this included three bills before 2014 (two in 2008 and one in 2012), and at least four after the Modi government came to power.During the discussion which lasted about six hours, opposition members demanded that the bill be sent to a select committee, highlighting over centralisation and the fiscal burden on states with the legislation now providing for the state governments to bear 40% of the share as against the 90% held by the centre earlier.‘Kill MGNREGA, forget Mahatma bill”Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Derek O’Brien said that the bill comes from a feudal mindset and termed it “ kill MGNREGA, forget Mahatma bill”.“The bill comes from a feudal mindset. MGNREGA was a right, now they want to dish it out as a dole before polls. It is not a gift. It is not workers dependent on the benevolence of the state,” he said.“The Union will make all the decisions, the state will budget the scheme, implemented by the state and the state has no right to decide. This is feudal.”Leader of opposition Mallikarjun Kharge said that MGNREGA was one of the most important legislations after independence that had helped create durable assets for the poor while the bill wants the poor to return to slavery, provides for over centralisation, ending decentralised government with the center “deciding where, on which scheme, and how much to spend.”Kharge also pointed to the bill providing a switch off clause during which work will not be provided for 60 days during agricultural season of harvesting and sowing, and the law no longer providing for work being demand driven as it was under MGNREGA.“You are halting a running scheme without reason. The government is not doing any favor to the people; rather, it is the state’s legal responsibility, which you want to say Ram-Ram (bye bye) to,” he said.Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sanjay Singh also demanded that the bill be withdrawn and taken to a committee, and warned that the government is making a “historic mistake.”“You are going to make a historic mistake. After passing this black law, India’s farmer, labour will take to the streets as the government is putting a knife to their stomach and their backs. This bill has been called G Ram G bill. How many misdeeds do you want to hide behind Lord Ram?” he said.Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Kumar Jha said that the legislation was born out of a movement and the spirit of MGNREGA was “har haath mein kaam, aur kaam ka wajeeb daam”. Jha said that the law became the closest approximation of Article 41 of right to work.“The name can be anything but the spirit should not be defeated. This is not the time of kings. A right has been taken to the status of charity. This is one of those pieces of legislation that has completely ignored the consultation door. This does not speak well about democratic practice, it only smacks of a kind of arrogance which comes from following majoritarian politics and that is antithetical to the idea of India,” he said.Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) (Shiv Sena (UBT)) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said that the bill burdens the states and no state government will give primacy to it, and effectively this “right based employment guarantee programme is being killed”.“It was first reported in the media that a bill is being brought to remove Gandhi’s name and today too they are trying to get it passed in the dead of the night. Was the idea of Ram Rajya anti-farmer, was Lord Ram against the poor, or against Gandhi who died saying ‘Hey Ram’?” said Chaturvedi.“We had demanded that consultations should have taken place, that it should be sent to a select committee before bringing it to parliament,” she said.