Shukla still critical, say doctors

Congress leader V.C. Shukla, critically injured in the Maoist attack on party leaders in Chhattisgarh, continues to remain critical and will take time to recover owing to his old age, doctors attending on him here said Monday.

"He is critical, and recovery will require lot of time because of his age. But we are confident we will get him through," Naresh Trehan, chairman and managing director of Medanta Medicity, told reporters here.

Shukla, 84, a former union minister, received three bullet injuries and lost a lot of blood in the attack on the Congress leaders' convoy in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region Saturday.

He was flown in an air ambulance to Delhi Sunday, and taken to the hospital in Gurgaon, where a multi-disciplinary team of doctors is treating him.

"He is in intensive care and on ventilator but conscious. As he has suffered three gun shots - two in chest and one in abdomen, there are multiple injuries. We are trying to remove toxicity from the body and giving antibiotics to contain the infection," said Trehan.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani visited him in the hospital Sunday.

Shukla belongs to an old Congress family, and his father Ravishankar Shukla was the first chief minister of reorganised Madhya Pradesh. V.C. Shukla was inducted into the union cabinet in 1966 by then prime minister Indira Gandhi.