Bhubaneswar: Hours after All India Congress Committee (AICC) President Rahul Gandhi called for crowdfunding to help upgrade a healthcare facility in Rourkela, political slugfest took centre stage in Odisha today.

Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi took to micro-blogging site Twitter where he called for fundraising for the hospital to 'shame the Prime Minister'.

Rahul’s jibe at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not go down well with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan terming the Gandhi scion to be ‘manufacturing lie’.

No sooner, recently-appointed Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) President Niranjan Patnaik came down heavily on the Union Minister and PM for duping the people of Odisha.


Solution to the mess BJP has created is not criticising @RahulGandhi at the drop of a hat. Here is your own MLA from Rourkela, saying what Mr. Gandhi has said. Now what? Another tweet from your usual 'attack-Rahul-template', @dpradhanbjp? Why lie?, Patnaik tweeted.

According to @dpradhanbjp & @narendramodi, citizens of India donating money for building a hospital for poor is a scam, BUT Amit Shah's cooperative bank converting 745 crores of banned notes is a social service? Nice!, the veteran Congress leader further tweeted.

Worth mentioning, this is the second such tweet by Rahul Gandhi over the issue in a span of eight days after a Rourkela-based youth Muktikanta Biswal fell unconscious after walking 1350 km to meet PM who failed to keep up his promise to upgrade the Ispat General Hospital (IGH) managed by SAIL to a super-speciality hospital.

Modi’s announcement came during his maiden visit to Odisha’s Steel City Rourkela on April 1, 2015 after being coronated as Prime Minister.

Senior BJP leader, former Union Minister and local MLA Dilip Ray had also expressed his displeasure of inordinate delay in expediting the process. Ray had also shot a letter to the Prime Minister in this regard.

“I met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for seven times and reiterated the issues pertaining to development of Rourkela. I have taken the matter to the ministers concerned for 15-20 times and written to the central authorities many times, but in vain. As the MLA of Rourkela, I am ashamed and feeling sad,” the entrepreneur-turned-politician had said in May last year while expressing his anguish over the issue.

Ray taking the issue to the media had embarrassed the party in the state.