Sarpanch to CM, Cong face in state

Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was also Maharashtra's second longest serving chief minister, died in a Chennai hospital on Tuesday following multiple organ failure. He was 67.

The former sarpanch of Babhalgaon village, which is on the outskirts of Latur city in the Marathwada region of the state, will be cremated on Wednesday in his hometown from where he began his political career nearly four decades ago.

Deshmukh had been rushed to Global Health City hospital in Chennai from Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai last Monday after his condition deteriorated. He was suffering from an advanced stage of liver cancer and doctors had considered a liver transplant. But with both kidneys failed, he needed continuous dialysis as well as cardiac support for circulatory failure and mechanical ventilation due to respiratory failure.

On Saturday, Deshmukh's name was registered with the organ transplant registry of the Tamil Nadu government as a "super urgent" case. His three sons, Amit, Riteish and Dheeraj, had offered a part of their livers. However, doctors said he required a whole organ for which a cadaver organ transplant was the only option.

After waiting for four days, they almost managed to arrange a donor late Monday when a 31-year-old van driver critically injured in a road accident was declared brain dead. Doctors at the government general hospital convinced his relatives to agree to organ donation but the driver died early Tuesday before his organs could be harvested. Subsequently, Deshmukh's condition worsened, and he died at around 1.40 pm on Tuesday.

Having started his political career as a member of Babhalgaon village panchayat, of which he was later elected sarpanch, the Maratha leader from a family of landlords was elected to district cooperative banks and the regional cooperative bank several times before winning polls to the Osmanabad Zilla Parishad and finally becoming a legislator for the first time in 1980.

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