ROURKELA: Union Tribal Affairs Minister and BJP candidate for Sundargarh Parliamentary constituency Jual Oram on Saturday appealed senior leader Dilip Ray to return to the party since issues raised by him have been addressed.
Addressing media persons here, Jual said work on the second Brahmani bridge and super speciality hospital at the RSP-run Ispat General Hospital (IGH) is underway. He said Dilip had recently thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his intervention on the projects and he must now return to the party.
On April 10, the former Union Minister had expressed his gratitude to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) which had intimated him about the latest status of the two projects. Dilip had quit BJP and resigned as MLA on November 30, 2018 expressing displeasure over the inordinate delay in these projects, which were announced by the Prime Minister in April, 2015. Earlier, he had exhorted his followers to ensure BJP’s defeat for the party’s failure to expedite the two projects.
Jual launched BJP’s Odisha specific Sankalp Patra (manifesto) at Rourkela and reiterated the saffron party’s commitment to fulfil the promises if the party is voted to power in Odisha. Among other things, Jual reiterated promises to enable houses for all by 2022, distribution of land records to all tribal families in the next five years, enhancing old-age pension of widows aged above 60 years to 1,000 and 1,500 for those aged above 79 years, enhancing of consolidated pay of Anganwadi workers and helpers to 15,000 and 9,000 respectively and also provide them `1 lakh assistance after retirement.
He further said 1 lakh crore would be invested in the irrigation sector and all backward regions would have separate budgetary provisions for development.