As is his wont, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar defied odds related to his failing health and presented a surplus annual State Budget, merely hours of being discharged from Mumbai’s lilavati Hospital, where he was being treated for a pancreas-related ailment.
According to BJP legislator Nilesh Cabral, who was emotional after meeting Parrikar, said that the Chief Minister had even defied his family’s wish of skipping the Budget Session of the State legislative Assembly for the sake of his health. “It is his will to come here... he arranged the flight himself, which his whole family did not know. Family was trying to bring him after the Budget Session. He must have used his good offices for the first time and came on a private flight. Only to show the people of Goa that I am a fighter,” Cabral told The Pioneer.
Parrikar, looking visibly weak and gaunt was escorted to the State legislative Assembly complex by his elder son Utpal and his retinue of officials and close aides and was greeted by his Cabinet colleagues and MlAs.