Rahul takes to Twitter again to embarrass Modi

ROURKELA / BHUBANESWAR: Congress president Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter again on Saturday to embarrass Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his failure to upgrade Rourkela Steel Plant’s Ispat General Hospital (IGH) into a super-speciality hospital and medical college.

This comes days after Rahul extended his support to Rourkela youth Muktikanta Biswal, who is on a trip to New Delhi, to remind the Prime Minister of the unfulfilled promises made to the residents of the steel city.

Rahul tweeted a video clip of the Prime Minister’s speech which he had delivered on April 1, 2015 promising to upgrade the IGH into a super-speciality hospital and medical college. “On 1st April, 2015 the PM played an ‘April Fools’ day on the people of Orissa as seen in this video. The Congress party has begun a fund raise to shame the PM into keeping the promise he made. Please contribute generously using this link: contribute.inc.in/Odi...”, tweeted the Congress president.

Rahul seems to have made an impact with his latest move as till 8.42 pm on Saturday, the tweet had elicited 54.5K views, 9,406 likes, 4,251 retweets and 1,472 comments.

Earlier, on June 17, the Congress scion had tweeted extending support to Muktikanta during the latter’s halt at Agra. Rahul had tweeted, “The PM promised Rourkela a multi-speciality hospital three years ago. Now Muktikant Biswal has walked 1,300 km to Delhi because PM hasn’t kept his promise and people are dying. I assure Mr. Biswal: the people of India and the Congress party will keep the PM’s promise for him”.

Pradhan’s response: Reacting to Rahul’s tweet, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan took to Twitter and said, “Rahul Gandhi’s fake news factory manufacture a new lie.” Claiming that the Centre has already sanctioned `200 crore for the project and the detailed project report has already been submitted, Pradhan said, “When has Rahul ever bothered about facts!”. He added, “After all kinds of scams, interesting to see a new scam in the form of fund-raising”.

In a post on the Indian National Congress website, the party said, “If the PM doesn’t feel his promises are his responsibility, then the  onus is on the citizens to ensure we look after our fellow citizens. Let them not lose faith in our democracy.” Extending support to Biswal, the Congress said that there is a very strong chance that Biswal will hear the same answer that millions of people of the country are hearing over the last 4 years. “We, the people can make up for this betrayal,” the Congress post said.
Meanwhile, Muktikanta on Saturday entered Haryana and needs to cover 90 km on foot to reach Delhi by June 27.