The fasting Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu was forcibly administered intravenous fluids by doctors of the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) here on Thursday as he faced an imminent risk of slipping into irreversible health complications and organ failure.
Armed with a metropolitan magistrate's order to safeguard his health, the doctors first shifted Mr. Naidu to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) from the emergency ward after police locked the handful of party leaders present in a room.
They pushed fluids intravenously as the TDP leader refused to accept medication or oral feeds.
NIMS Director P.V. Ramesh said it would take another 24 hours for Mr. Naidu's condition to stabilise. He maintained that the administration of intravenous fluids was purely a medical decision based on the advice of a five-member team of eminent doctors including cardiologist B. Somaraju and gastroenterologist D. Nageshwar Reddy.
This development followed the failure of leaders at an all-party meeting chaired by Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy earlier to reach an understanding on the relief package for rain-hit farmers and to persuade the TDP leader to end his seven-day-old fast.
The Telugu Desam, CPI and CPI(M) leaders walked out of the meeting after accusing the government of failure to thrash out an amicable solution.
After their exit, the meeting adopted a resolution appealing to Mr. Naidu to call off his fast in the light of the government's efforts to get the input subsidy enhanced to Rs. 8,000 a hectare with Central assistance. By another resolution, the leaders appealed to farmers not to resort to suicide and promised to work together for their welfare.
The Chief Minister offered to lead an all-party delegation to New Delhi soon to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and seek more Central relief.
Briefing the media later, Ministers Anam Ramanarayan Reddy (Finance) and D. Sridhar Babu (Civil Supplies) expressed the government's inability to meet Mr. Naidu's 23 demands in the light of the State's precarious finances.
The meeting was attended by K. Chiranjeevi (Praja Rajyam), M. Kodanda Reddy (Congress), E. Rajender (Telangana Rashtra Samithi), N. Jayaprakash Narayan (Lok Satta) and other leaders.
