Kendrapara: Eight-six years after Mahatma Gandhi’s historic padayatra to Kendrapara to unite people against untouchability, plans are afoot to revamp and convert the colonial bungalow at Garapur, on the outskirts of the town, where he stayed for three days in 1934.
On Tuesday, Works Minister Prafulla Kumar Mallik visited the bungalow and held discussions with the district administration on the proposal.
“This museum will remind people of the significance of the 1934 padayatra and highlight the Mahatma’s role in the freedom struggle,” said Kendrapara MLA Sashibhusan Behera.
It will have a khadi centre, photo gallery, library and conference hall. The furniture used by Gandhi during his visit to the district from May 27 to 29, 1934 will be preserved by authorities, he added.
Former Principal of Kendrapara College Nanda Kishor Parida to the TNIE that Gandhi had allowed Dalits to enter temples in some villages during his long walk in Odisha. “He also addressed a public meeting at Garapur on May 28, 1934,” he was quoted as saying.
Gandhi was accompanied by Meera Ben, Gopabandhu Choudhury, Rajkrushna Bose, Rama Devi, a German youth K Kuto, Uma Bajaj, Binod Kanungo, Surendranath Pattnayak, Manmohan Choudhury and Jadumani Mangaraj during his five-day-long tour of Kendrapara, sources said.
Earlier, a house in which he had stayed during his visit to Dhumat village on May 30 that year and planted a banyan tree was converted into an ashram.