‘Delhi Chalo’ Crusader Muktikant Biswal Cong’s Candidate For Rourkela

Bhubaneswar: The Congress has named social activist Muktikant Biswal as its nominee for the Rourkela Assembly seat in its second list of candidates released late on Friday. The list names candidates for two Lok Sabha and 54 Assembly seats.

The Rourkela youth hogged the limelight with his “Delhi Chalo” mission, when he travelled from the Steel City to New Delhi on foot last April to remind Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the promises he had made during his maiden visit to Rourkela.

During his visit on April 1, 2015, the Prime Minister had announced construction of a second bridge over the Brahmani River near Panposh and upgrading of the Ispat General Hospital (IGH) to a medical college and super specialty hospital.

After covering about 1,350 km, he fainted on the highway and was admitted to a hospital in Agra on June 27.

Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram and some local BJP leaders had criticised the 30-year-old and dissuaded him from continuing with his yatra, saying that work on the projects had already started.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi had then tweeted: “The PM promised Rourkela a multi- speciality hospital three years ago. Now, Muktikant Biswal has walked 1,300 km to Delhi because the 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.”

After “literally” being driven out of Delhi, Mukti had embarked on another padyatra to Bhubaneswar to meet Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to raise these demands last July.

Besides the Chief Minister, he had meet Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik, leader of the Opposition (LoP) Narasingha Mishra and the AICC general secretary in charge of Odisha Jitendra Singh.