Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee critical, put on life support system: AIIMS

New Delhi: Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's health has worsened since Tuesday and is critical, an official statement by AIIMS said late on Wednesday evening.

The statement said Vajpayee is on life support system.

93-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and the tenth Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was admitted to AIIMS, New Delhi on June 11 with kidney tract infection, urinary tract infection, low urine output and chest congestion.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the AIIMS around 7.15 pm and spent about 50 minutes there. This was PM Modi's fourth visit to Vajpayee in AIIMS since he has been admitted.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, BJP lawmaker Meenakshi Lekhi and Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani had also visited the hospital to check on Vajpayee.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee is under the supervision of Dr Randeep Guleria, a pulmonologist and currently the Director of AIIMS. Dr Guleria has served as personal physician to the former prime minister for over three decades.

According to reports, a team of doctors from the nephrology, gastroenterology, pulmonology and cardiology departments is looking after Atal Bihari Vajpayee who is in the hospital for the last nine weeks.

The former prime minister, born in 1924, was thrice elected prime minister between 1996 and 1999 and is the only non-Congress prime minister to complete the full term of five years, from 1999 to 2004.

Following health detoriation, he had slowly withdrawn himself from public life and was confined to his residence for years.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a diabetic, has only one functional kidney. He had suffered a stroke in 2009 that weakened his cognitive abilities. Subsequently, he developed dementia.