Varanasi: Leaders organised a padayatra demanding AIIMS to be built in the city

The padayatra was led by Om Shankar, a cardiologist at BHU. SP leader Satish Fauzi, Shailendra Singh of Congress, Sanjeev Singh of AAP and leaders from BSP and BJP also joined the march.

“We held a padayatra to press our long-standing demand for an AIIMS in Varanasi. Leaders from various political parties as well as medical practitioners and students joined the march,” said Shankar, Assistant Professor of Cardiology at the Institute of Medical Science (IMS), BHU.

He said, “Setting up of AIIMS in Gorakhpur is a wrong decision taken by the Union government and it should reconsider our demand for establishing an AIIMS in Varanasi.”
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The Prime Minister had on Friday laid the foundation of AIIMS in Gorakhpur. Shankar had sat on a hunger strike in 2014, demanding upgradation of IMS to AIIMS.

He had called off his fast after the university authorities assured him of taking up the issue with the Union government.