The condition of veteran CPI leader AB Bardhan, who was admitted to a hospital here on Monday after suffering a paralytic stroke, has become "very critical", a senior party leader said tonight.
"His health showed no sign of improvement today. His condition has become very critical," party leader Atul Anjan said after visiting GB Pant hospital, where the ex-CPI general secretary is admitted in the intensive care unit.
Earlier in the day, CPI had said that the 92-year-old veteran of the Left movement in India was "critical, but fighting".
The party had said that Bardhan "was admitted to GB Pant Hospital after he complained of breathlessness". "He had brain haemorrhage," CPI had said in a statement.
The party said its headquarters is receiving "numerous" calls from its state unit leaders and other political parties from India and foreign fraternal outfits following news of his hospitalisation.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, his predecessor Prakash Karat, CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat were among the politicians who visited the hospital to enquire about the veteran communist leader's health.
"Visited Comrade A.B.Bardhan in hospital this evening along with Comrades T K Rangarajan and Ritabrata. Hoping for his speedy recovery," Yechury tweeted later.
Bardhan's daughter Alka Barua is by his side, while son Ashok is expected to reach the national capital at midnight, CPI said.
Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan has been a leading figure of the trade union movement and Left politics in Maharashtra. He had won as an Independent candidate in Maharashtra Assembly polls in 1957.
He later rose to become the General Secretary and, then, the President of the All India Trade Union Congress, the oldest trade union in India.
Bardhan moved to Delhi politics in the 1990s and became the Deputy General Secretary of CPI. He succeeded Indrajit Gupta as the General Secretary of the party in 1996.
