Manmohan Singh, India's 76-year-old Prime Minister, is in intensive care in hospital today recovering from a successful heart bypass amid confusion about who has replaced him at the helm of the world's largest democracy.
As doctors declared him stable this morning, Indian police said they had killed two suspected Pakistani militants near Delhi, raising fears of another stand-off between India and Pakistan, two months after the Mumbai attacks.
Yesterday's operation, which lasted 11 hours, has also provoked questions about Dr Singh's long-term health -- and the advanced age of many other Indian politicans -- in the run-up to a general election due by May.
Dr Singh – a diabetic who had a heart bypass in Britain in 1990 and an angioplasty in India in 2003 -- will remain in intensive care for three days or so and in hospital for a week, according to his doctors.
He will then have to rest for four to six weeks, they say.
"The Prime Minister…. talked to his family this morning," Dr Singh's office said in a statement. "The doctors attending on the Prime Minister say that he is stable, comfortable and is making rapid progress."
An 11-member team performed the operation, during which Dr Singh's heart was kept beating as surgeons grafted five arteries onto his heart to bypass blockages, according to medical sources.
The Prime Minister's office and the ruling Congress Party played down the gravity of the operation, insisting that Dr Singh would be fit to campaign for the coming election.
After some initial confusion, they said that Pranab Mukherjee, the Foreign Minister, had assumed the Prime Minister's responsibilities as head of the Cabinet.
Mr Mukherjee, 73, will also take over Dr Singh's role as acting Finance Minister, they said.
However, Mr Mukherjee has not been formally appointed acting Prime Minister, prompting speculation about a succession struggle inside Congress.
Nor does he control India's "nuclear button", which has passed into the hands of a committee including him, the Home Minister and the Defence Minister.
India has no Deputy Prime Minister and no formal procedure to replace the Prime Minister in an emergency – unlike the United States, where the Vice President assumes command.
Dr Singh, who became Prime Minister in 2004, will be the first not to attend tomorrow's annual Republic Day parade since the tradition began in 1950.
He will also be unable to host Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh President, who is the guest of honour at the parade, and Kevin Rudd, Australia's Prime Minister, who has postponed his visit.
More worryingly, however, India's chief executive is incapacitated in the midst of a global economic crisis and a tense stand-off with Pakistan over last year's Mumbai attacks.
India blames the attacks on Pakistani militants, backed by Pakistan's intelligence agency, and has demanded that Pakistan hand over the perpetrators and crack down on other militant groups.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since winning independence from Britain in 1947, and almost went to a fourth after Pakistani militants attacked India's parliament in 2001.
This morning, Indian police said they had shot dead two suspected Pakistani militants after a car chase shortly before dawn in the city of Noida, which is right next to Delhi but technically falls inside the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
"We recovered AK-47 rifles and grenades and some documents, including a Pakistani passport," Navin Arora, a senior police officer in Noida, told reporters.
The security scare is likely to exacerbate concerns about Dr Singh's fitness to serve another five-year term, analysts say.
He underwent yesterday's operation on his doctors' advice after he complained of chest pains last week, and tests revealed blockages in his heart. He also had an operation on his wrist in 2006, underwent surgery for a "benign enlargement" of the prostate gland in 2007, and had a cataract removed last year.
Congress, which leads the coalition government, says he will remain Prime Minister if the party and its allies win again, but it is understood to be planning to replace him, possibly within two years, with Rahul Gandhi, the 38-year-old son of Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born Congress leader.
Mr Gandhi's supporters say that India has long been held back by the advanced age of its politicians, and needs a new generation of young, energetic leaders to match its vibrant economy.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which leads the opposition, had been reluctant to raise the issue, however, as its Prime Ministerial candidate, L K Advani, is 81.
Mr Advani, who recently launched a blog, pointedly boasted of his good health in newspapers over the weekend and stressed the need for experience in a national leader.
Rajnath Singh, the BJP leader, caused a stir last year by calling Mr Gandhi a "bachcha", which means "child" in Hindi. Mr Gandhi shot back:
"Yes I am still a bachcha… however, fortunately or unfortunately for him, 70 per cent of this country are also bachchas'."
source:the london times
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