CM's son Rakesh dies of multiple organ failure

Final rites in Mysuru taluk tomorrow

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s eldest son Rakesh, who was being treated for acute pancreatitis at Antwerp University Hospital in Belgium, died of multiple organ failure on Saturday.

The Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) confirmed the news of his death at around 4 pm.
Thirty-nine-year-old Rakesh, who had celebrated his birthday on July 13, is survived by wife, son and daughter.

The chief minister’s family will fly back with the body to Mysuru in a special aircraft on Sunday evening or Monday morning. Rakesh’s last rites will be held in T Katuru in Mysuru taluk on Monday.

Rakesh, who was touring Belgium with five friends, is learnt to have developed abdominal pain on July 22. On the following day, after he fell unconscious, his friends admitted him to a local hospital and subsequently informed the chief minister about his critical condition.

Siddaramaiah had sought External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s help to get prompt medical assistance in that country. Following this, India’s Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg, Manjeev Singh Puri, had facilitated Rakesh’s treatment at Antwerp University Hospital in Brussels.

According to the CMO, Rakesh had been suffering from pancreatic complications ever since his near-fatal motorcycle accident in 2001. He is learnt to have been hospitalised three months ago for a week.

Sources said Rakesh had to undergo two surgeries in Belgium, following which he had been put on a ventilator in the intensive care unit. While Siddaramaiah flew into Belgium on July 28, his wife Parvathi reached there the following day. Siddaramaiah’s younger son Yathindra, Rakesh’s wife Swathi and two family doctors had flown in earlier in the week. Before leaving, Siddaramaiah had said, “He is a little critical, but stable. He is responding to treatment,” he had said on July 27.

Siddaramaiah had political ambitions for Rakesh, who was to contest the next Assembly elections from Varuna constituency in Mysuru district.