Bhubaneswar: The controversy over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's unfulfilled promise of upgrading the Ispat General Hospital (IGH) in Rourkela into a super-specialty facility continues to snowball with Odisha Congress Legislature Party seeking an appointment with Modi to discuss the issue and present him a cheque to help execute the much-debated project.

Congress Legislature Party leader Narasingha Mishra, who also happens to the leader of Opposition in the Odisha Assembly, on Monday wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, reminding him of his promise, which is yet to be met.

"I write to you to remind about your promise on 1st April, 2015 at Rourkela for a superspecialty hospital. We are thankful to you for your proposal to extend healthcare facility to a tribal dominated area. However, regretfully we do not see any progress on your promise even though three years have passed and your term is nearing an end," the letter said, adding that the Prime Minister's promise had raised hopes as a poor state such as Odisha badly required quality education and health care facilities and relied a lot on central funding in this regard.

"In this regard, the Congress Legislature Party would like to meet you on behalf of the people of Odisha to present you a cheque of the fund raised by our party in support of this project and submit our memorandum," the letter added, while seeking an appointment with Modi on a "priority basis".

Significantly, Mishra's missive follows the arrest of Rourkela youth Muktikanta Biswal by Delhi police on Sunday after he failed to meet the Prime Minister and staged a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar to highlight the hospital issue. Biswal had walked all the way from Rourkela to Delhi to remind Modi of his promise.

Sensing an opportunity to embarrass Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had taken up Biswal's cause and talked of a fund-raising drive for the super-specialty hospital in a recent tweet. "On 1st April, 2015 the PM played an April Fools' day joke on the people of Orissa, as seen in this video. The Congress party has begun a fund raise to shame the PM into keeping the promise he made," he wrote on Twitter attaching with the tweet a video of the Prime Minister's address in Rourkela on Utkal Divas in 2015.