World | India
Singh, Sonia visit ailing CPM leader Surjeet
Manmohan Singh came to the Metro Hospital here on the outskirts of Delhi and spent about 10 minutes around noon. Gandhi came in the evening.
- IANS
- Published: 00:16 May 19, 2008
Noida: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi yesterday called on ailing Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet, whose condition remains "very critical".
Manmohan Singh came to the Metro Hospital here on the outskirts of Delhi and spent about 10 minutes around noon. Gandhi came in the evening.
Both saw the 92-year-old veteran Marxist at the Intensive Cardiac Care Unit where he was admitted May 6 following cardiac arrest.
Since then, he has been put on ventilation. But Surjeet has not regained consciousness.
"His condition is very critical but stable. He is on ventilation. His vital organs are stable. Even the heart is working," hospital director and chief cardiac surgeon Purushottam Lal said.
Doctors' effort
Lal said it was too early to say if Surjeet would recover. "We expect his condition to improve... We are trying our level best."
But another doctor who did not want to be identified said: "The chances of Surjeet's survival are very minimal."
"Sonia Gandhi spent a few quiet minutes," speaking to doctors and Surjeet's party colleagues, a hospital source said.
Surjeet, a former general secretary of the party, had been virtually confined to his Teen Murti Lane residence in New Delhi for over a year due to ill health.
CPM leaders including general secretary Prakash Karat, who succeeded Surjeet in 2005, and politburo members Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat and M.K. Pandhe also visited the hospital yesterday.
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