Cong plans stir over ‘cut’ in Rae Bareli AIIMS bed capacity

Terming the move to bring down the capacity of Rae Bareli’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) from 960 to 600 beds as a ‘political vendetta’, the Congress party says it will hold a major demonstration in protest in the coming weeks.

The AIIMS in Rae Bareli is a dream project of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the party has been closely watching implementation of the project .

“We are told that the capacity of AIIMS Rae Bareli is being brought down. The NDA government has also limited the allocation of funds for the project that has been unnecessarily delayed. It’s political vendetta. Many other projects of Rae Bareli too have been affected. We will soon hold a demonstration against such moves,” Sonia Gandhi’s Lok Sabha representative KL Sharma told HT on phone.

“Rae Bareli is being given step motherly treatment by the Modi led NDA government. It’s about construction of AIIMS and not a Congress office. Besides Rae Bareli, the AIIMS will be beneficial even to people of adjoining districts There should have been no politics on the issue,” said Rae Bareli district Congress committee president VK Shukla.

“Other projects that have suffered include rail wheel project at Lalganj (Rae Bareli) approved during the UPA government’s tenure. The NDA government has also not released funds for package formulated by the UPA government for the Indian Telephone Industry in Rae Bareli and Allahabad etc. A women’s university project proposed for Rae Bareli has also been shelved,” said Shukla.

The Congress had early this month held a ‘dharna’ in Rae Bareli to demand that the OPD be made functional at the AIIMS there. The party had targeted the UP government for failing to ensure promised 24-hour power supply at district headquarters and 18 hours in rural areas.

Congress has also been agitating for shelving of some projects in Amethi too. Rahul had led a ‘padyatra’ to the site of Shaktiman Food Park project in Jagdishpur (Amethi) to protest shelving of the project. Another major Hindustan Paper Mill project has also been shelved. Other major projects shifted out included Amethi campus of IIIT Allahabad.