Four CMs visit ailing former PM Vajpayee in AIIMS

Once considered a face of Bhartiya Janta Party in the country, former Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee found himself amused by the beeline of visitors at his hospital– the ward of AIIMS, to be precise.

Four Chief Ministers of different states of the country, belonging to the West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were the VIP visitors to the super VIP patient.

Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar, Raman Singh and Raghubar Das are considered senior leaders of the country who visited the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to inquire about the health of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Vajpayee is undergoing treatment of urinal infection there, hospital sources confirmed.

Incidentally, all the four chief ministers are here to be a part of the meeting of the NITI Aayog. It is to be presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also visited the octogenarian leader at his ward. It may be recalled that the former PM, Vajpayee’s condition is improving slowly, but as per medical advice he is recuperating in the Intensive Care Unit of the Cardio-Thoracic Centre at the super speciality hospital.

“Vajpayee jee is stable. He continues to show improvement and is being monitored by the team of doctors,” the official spokesperson of AIIMS said on Sunday.

A B Vajpayee was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences on June 11 with a number of medical complications. These include kidney tract infection, chest congestion and the urine output on the lower side. He was immediately examined extensively by a team of doctors and put on necessary antibiotics, it is informed.

The hospital sources said that the former prime minister is surviving on only one functional kidney. He is known to be a diabetic and had suffered a cardiac stroke about nine years ago. It had weakened his cognitive abilities, it is said. As a result, he had developed a form of dementia.

A number of top dignitaries which include Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, two former prime ministers– Manmohan Singh and H D Deve Gowda, CM of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje and Congress president Rahul Gandhi had already visited the AIIMS since Vajpayee was convalescing there.

To recall his political career, Vajpayee had been elected prime minister between 1996 and 1999, thrice. He is regarded as the only non-Congress prime minister to have completed the full term of five years, from 1999 to 2004.

He has withdrawn himself from the public life due to his poor health and has remained confined to his residence in the capital for many years now.