After months of total silence over the exact ailment Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was suffering from, Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on October 27 disclosed that Mr. Parrikar was suffering from pancreatic cancer.
“He is the Chief Minister of Goa and the fact is that he is not well. He has got pancreatic cancer. There is no hiding of this fact,” Mr. Rane told the media on October 27.
Significantly, after demanding that BJP or State government come clean on the Chief Minister’s health details and updates for months, the Congress in Goa on October 26 gave the BJP-led coalition government four days to prove that Mr. Parrikar was of “sound health and alert mind”, and in a position to govern the State or threatened to approach the court seeking a disclosure in this regard.
“Let him be peaceful with his family. That much right he has after serving people of Goa. If he wants to spend some quality time with his family nobody has the business to question that. It is for his family to declare it,” Mr. Rane further said. He criticised the Congress for playing politics over the Chief Minister’s health, saying if the Congress wants to go to court to formally learn of Mr. Parrikar’s health condition, it was free to do so.
Mr. Parrikar has been ailing and taking treatment in different hospitals within the country and abroad for the past seven months. His absence has created a leadership vacuum in the Goa government with the Opposition demanding that he should step aside to focus on treatment and allowing the government to be run by a full-fledged Chief Minister.
Mr. Parrikar did not have a single public appearance since his return from Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences on October 14, and is currently bedridden at his residence. His room at his residence, according to sources in BJP, has been converted by the state-run Goa Medical College hospital into a hitech medical facility, with medical and paramedical staff on 24-hour duty.
