PATNA: With a panel of doctors who examined jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav recommending on Wednesday that he be shifted to a super-specialty hospital outside Jharkhand, he is likely to be flown to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi.
A six-member medical board of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi, where the 69-year-old former Bihar chief minister is under treatment for the last five days, took stock of his health complications for the second time on Wednesday. RIMS authorities sent the recommendation for shifting Yadav to the superintendent of Birsa Munda Central Jail at Hotwar near Ranchi, where he has been lodged since December 23, 2017.
“He (Yadav) is suffering from a number of complications pertaining to heart and kidneys besides a piles-related condition. Although right now there is no immediate surgical need for him, he has been put under observation and advised examination at better institutions outside the state,” said Dr RK Srivastava, the director of RIMS.
Yadav, who was convicted for the fourth time in fodder scam cases on Monday, was shifted from RIMS’ cardiology ward to the medicine ward on Wednesday noon and placed under the care of Dr Umesh Prasad, said sources.
The former railway minister has been suffering from diabetes, hypertension and cardiac ailments for the last several years. He underwent an open heart surgery in August 2014.
The special CBI court of judge Shiv Pal Singh, which was set to pronounce the quantum of sentence for Yadav on Wednesday, completed hearing on six of the total 19 convicts in the case. Yadav’s name did not come up for hearing in the alphabetical list of the convicts’ names.
“We have prayed to the court to give the minimum punishment to him (Yadav) taking into consideration his age and declining health conditions. The punishment for him is likely to be pronounced on March 23,” said Sanjeev Chandra, one of Yadav’s lawyers.
The RJD chief, who was Bihar CM when the Rs 1,000-crore fodder scam surfaced in the mid-1990s, has so far been handed imprisonment sentences for 13 years and a half in the previous three cases.