In the run-up to a second consecutive term as Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh is in “perfect health” and has the “physical fitness” to face the pressures of the job.
“The PM is one of the fittest 76-year-olds I’ve seen after surgery. He is perfectly fit to take up strenuous activity,” said Dr Ramakant Panda of Mumbai’s Asian Heart Institute, the lead surgeon who performed the multiple re-do bypass surgery on Singh on January 24 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
Dr Panda’s comments put to rest speculation in political quarters, especially in Opposition circles, that Singh may give up midway through his second stint.
In April, two months after the surgery, at the G-20 Summit, the PM put in 16 hours of work a day, sources told HT.
A month ago, he underwent breathing exercises and a treadmill test. He was put on Holter monitor – an electro-cardiography device - for 24 hours and results were “absolutely normal”, the source said.