NEW DELHI, Dec. 19 -- Amid sustained protests by the Opposition, the Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, or the VB-G RAM G Bill, which seeks to replace the UPA-era Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) that provides employment guarantees in rural areas. The legislation was cleared by a voice vote, following which the House was adjourned for Friday. The Bill will now be taken up in the Rajya Sabha. The passage of the Bill was marked by chaos in the House, with Opposition MPs demanding that it be referred to a standing committee. As slogans were raised against the government, several members entered the Well of the House, tore copies of the Bill and flung the papers towards the Chair. Speaker Om Birla rejected the demand to send the Bill to a standing committee, saying the legislation had already been discussed at length. The VB-G RAM G Bill was introduced in the Parliament by rural development and agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan on Wednesday. The proposed legislation aims to provide a statutory guarantee of 125 days of wage employment every year in rural areas, with the government allocating Rs.95,000 crore for the initiative. Earlier on Wednesday, several Opposition MPs including Congress's Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, DMK's TR Baalu and Samajwadi Party's Dharmendra Yadav, opposed the Bill stating that removing Mahatma Gandhi's name from the law is an insult to the Father of the Nation, and also pointed out that the Bill puts more burden on the states as it follows 60:40 funding model between Centre and states for most states. As soon as Birla on Thursday asked Chauhan to reply to the discussion on the bill, Congress MP KC Venugopal urged the speaker to send the bill to a Parliamentary Standing Committee or a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). However, Bila refused stating that, "A total of 98 Lok Sabha MPs have put out their views on the bill till 1:30 AM in the night it was debated for over eight hours compared to four hours allotted for the same." He requested opposition MPs to listen to the minister's views, however the opposition, led by the Congress, started protesting and sloganeering while claiming that by withdrawing MGNREGA, the NDA government is "insulting Mahatma Gandhi and diluting the provisions of the Act." Amid sloganeering, Chouhan continued to speak on the the proposed law and said it will lead to "comprehensive development of villages" and "meant to provide abundant employment to every poor person, uphold their dignity, and offer additional protection to the differently-abled, elderly, women, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes". Chouhan said that there are many shortcomings in MGNREGA, and states have spent more on labour and less on material procurement. "NREGA was not initially kept in the name of Mahatma Gandhi ji; it was just NREGA. Mahatma Gandhi's name was added to NREGA with an eye on the 2009 general elections to get votes.MGNREGA was nothing but a tool of corruption and the new law has been brought after discussions with stakeholders," he said. Chauhan also dismissed Priyanka Gandhi's allegations that the Modi government is arbitrarily changing the names of schemes as he provided a list of schemes, infrastructure places, institutes and scholarships named after Nehru-Gandhi. "They named 25 state governments schemes after Rajiv Gandhi, 27 schemes after Indira Gandhi to glorify their own clan members.Congress killed ideals of Mahatma Gandhi when it accepted partition of India; rejected his call for disbanding party; the day they gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir; and the day Indira Gandhi imposed emergency," he said. However, the Opposition continued its protest, with several MPs storming the well of the House to oppose the Bill. Amid the uproar, some members tore up papers, prompting Speaker Om Birla to intervene. "The people have not sent you here to tear paper.The nation is watching you," he said. Continuing his reply to the discussion over the bill, Chauhan said the aim of the bill is to develop villages with all facilities in line with the vision of Viksit Bharat by 2047. "The very name of this bill spells out the purpose of this scheme. In this scheme, we are providing a guarantee of employment. We are working to enrich livelihoods, with the aim of building a developed India," he said. Chauhan said, When the UPA government was in power, only 1660 crore man-days were created but 3210 crore man-days were created under the Modi government. "The Congress government spent Rs 2.13 lakh crore on MGNREGA, while the NDA government spent Rs.8.53 lakh," he said. Opposition MPs also carried out a protest march inside the Parliament House complex against the government's G RAM G bill, demanding its withdrawal. After the House was adjourned, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the opposition would continue to strongly oppose the bill. "Anyone who reads the bill will understand how the rural employment guarantee scheme is about to finish. This bill puts a funding burden on states, and state governments do not have money. This scheme (MGNREGA) is a support for the poorest of the poor. This bill is anti-poor," she told the media. Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said, "This is not merely a case of renaming MGNREGA; rather, it is the systematic murder of the world's largest employment scheme." Speaking outside Parliament, Chouhan slammed the Opposition for its "unruly behaviour" in the Lok Sabha and for opposing the provisions of the Bill that has been drafted with an eye on developing infrastructure in villages and expanding the scope of guaranteed work days. "The kind of indecent conduct displayed by the opposition that tore the pages of the bill and threw them around.is that not an insult to Bapu (Mahatma Gandhi). I condemn the way the opposition members including members of the Congress and the INDI alliance behaved in the Lok Sabha today and undermined the integrity of democracy. Parliamentary decorum was thoroughly disregarded, reducing the spirit of democracy to a display of disorder and unruliness," he said addressing the media at the party headquarters....