Bhubaneswar: Not all elected leaders make themselves so readily available to the public. This MLA, however, went a step ahead. He circulated his personal mobile number on all his social media handles after winning the election and spread the word that anyone in distress could call him directly.
The MLA recently proved that he meant what he said. Swarup Kumar Das, a newly elected MLA from Balasore Sadar constituency in Odisha, travelled to a flood-affected village and rescued a pregnant woman to take her to hospital.
He first reached Balasore district’s Mundadhar village, which has been completely immersed due to incessant rain, on a speedboat and rescued the woman, Mamata Rout and later drove her in his car to the district hospital.
Mamata’s family had been despairing as they could not reach the hospital. But when she developed her labour pains, her family went to the village sarpanch to seek help, who remembered the MLA’s promise and dialled his number.
Swarup Das already happened to be on a boat touring the flood-affected areas. He immediately reached Mundadhar village on receiving the sarpanch’s call and took Mamata to the nearest motorable road on his speedboat and then drove her to the district hospital, where she gave birth to a boy.
