I am completely fine now: UP BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya says after being discharged

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad offers sweets to Maurya outside Parliament on Thursday. (PTI)

New Delhi: , chief of the UP's BJP unit, after being admitted to the ICU of RML hospital in New Delhi on Thursday informed that he has been discharged and was doing fine. "This is to inform all my well wishers that I have been discharged from hospital and returned home. I am completely fine, thanks to your blessings. There’s nothing to worry,” he said. He was admitted to the hospital last afternoon after complaining of uneasiness.

सभी शुभचिंतकों को अवगत कराना चाहूंगा की हॉस्पिटल से डिस्चार्ज होकर घर आ गया हूं आप सब का आशीर्वाद है मैं पूर्ण स्वस्थ हूं निश्चिंत रहें pic.twitter.com/Dz2l6MErnG

— Keshav Prasad Maurya (@kpmaurya1) March 16, 2017

A few hours earlier, a jocular remark by party national president Amit Shah had seemed to imply that Maurya was no longer in the running for chief minister. Maurya, 48, was admitted to the intensive care unit at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. Union health minister J.P. Nadda had also visited him. Several party seniors visited Maurya in hospital. "Mauryaji was not feeling well because of the fatigue of campaigning.... His condition is normal and he is fine," Nadda said. Maurya, an MP, had attended a BJP parliamentary party meeting Thursday morning that was addressed by Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The backward caste politician was even then being seen as one of the frontrunners for the chief minister's post. The meeting, held in Parliament House, lauded Maurya for his contribution to the election victory in Uttar Pradesh. He was felicitated along with Modi and the party's Uttar Pradesh minder, Om Mathur. After the meeting, when reporters asked Shah who the next chief minister might be, he pointed to Maurya and said with a smile: "Keshav jiska naam tay karenge uspar mohar laga denge (We'll put our seal on whoever Keshav picks)." Shah was clearly joking, but the tongue-in-cheek remark still seemed to pack a message: that Maurya was out of the race for the chief minister's post. Doctors at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital said Maurya had been admitted around 3.40pm. They said he had had a cough and mild fever for the past one week, possibly brought on by overwork. "On admission his blood pressure was slightly higher. At present he is fully conscious and better. He has been kept under observation for further evaluation," PTI quoted the hospital's medical superintendent, Dr A.K. Gadpayle. Maurya had been one of the BJP's star campaigners in Uttar Pradesh. His elevation as state unit president and his foregrounding during the electioneering is believed to have helped rally the non-Yadav backward castes behind the party. Another reason he was seen as a contender for the chief minister's chair was his good relationship with the Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Party sources, however, suggested there were questions over Maurya's ability to govern a large and complex state like Uttar Pradesh. "To govern Uttar Pradesh, you need a leader with a bigger profile," a BJP insider said. Shah, authorised to pick the chief ministers for Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in consultation with central party observers, is likely to make his decisions known by Friday. (With additional information from The Telegraph, Calcutta)