U'khand CM remembers dead colleague

Before leaving for the US for cancer treatment, Uttarkhand cabinet minister Prakash Pant had promised Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat that he will get well and return soon. This was not to be, Rawat Thursday said in an emotional video message a day after the death of the minister in a Texas hospital.

"He had promised to return soon. Now his body is being brought back. I am very sad," teary-eyed Rawat said. The minister of parliamentary affairs and finance in the Uttarakhand government, Prakash Pant (58) is survived by his parents, wife, two daughters and a son.

Rawat recalled that the minister had collapsed while reading the budget speech in the state assembly three months ago. He said the initial medical examination could not detect the ailment.

Later, it was revealed that he suffered from a "rare and aggressive type of cancer", the CM said. The state government has announced a three-day mourning.

A government spokesperson said the body of the minister would be brought back in a day or two. State BJP chief Ajay Bhatt expressed grief over the minister’s death and said all party programmes had been cancelled for the next three days.

The state assembly too paid tributes to Pant. Speaker Premchand Aggarwal termed his death an irreparable loss and remembered his conduct in the assembly.