Bhubaneswar: Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan Saturday engaged in a war of words on Twitter over the promise made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to upgrade the Ispat General Hospital in Rourkela to a medical college.
On Twitter, he accused the PM of playing an ‘April Fool joke’ on the people of Odisha, as Modi had made the promise during a public function April 1, 2015. Rahul urged the people to support the Congress in raising funds for the hospital and to “shame” the PM for not keeping his promise.
“On April 1, 2015 the PM played an April Fools’ joke on Orissa, as can be seen in this video. The Congress has begun a fund-raising campaign to shame the PM into keeping the promise he made. Please contribute generously,” Rahul tweeted.
Terming the Nehru dynasty scion as a ‘lie manufacturer’, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan criticised the Congress chief through his Twitter handle.
“Rahul Gandhi’s fake news factory manufactures a new lie. Rs 200 crore has been allotted for the hospital and a DPR (detailed project report) has been submitted, but when has Rahul bothered about facts!”
Attacking Rahul Pradhan said, “After all kinds of scams it is interesting to see a new scam in the form of fund raising.”
This is the second tweet by Rahul Gandhi over the issue in eight days after Rourkela youth Muktikanta Biswal fell unconscious after walking 1350 km to meet the PM who had failed to keep his promise to upgrade the Ispat General Hospital (IGH) managed by Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) into a super speciality hospital.
Senior BJP leader MLA Dilip Ray had also expressed displeasure at the delay in speeding up the process. Ray had sent a letter to the Prime Minister regarding this.
PNN
