Jitan Ram Manjhi moved to AIIMS ICU with fever and breathing failure

Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Jitan Ram Manjhi was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi on Sunday evening with high fever and difficulty breathing. He arrived at the emergency department around 5 p.m. and was moved to the intensive care unit around 9 p.m. He is 80.

Manjhi had been in hospital in Patna for viral fever, was discharged after he seemed to improve, then worsened again. Hospital sources in Delhi told reporters that dengue was suspected and that his platelet count had fallen. AIIMS itself had not issued a detailed bulletin by Monday midday. A team of specialists is running the case.

Why the admission is more than a health brief

Manjhi is not only a Union minister. He is the founder and patron of Hindustani Awam Morcha, a Bihar party that sits in the National Democratic Alliance. He served as chief minister of Bihar from 2014 to 2015 after a split in the Janata Dal (United). In the Union cabinet he holds the MSME portfolio, a job that sounds narrow and touches a large share of Indian employment.

An ICU admission at 80, with a suspected mosquito-borne fever and respiratory distress, is a medical event first. It is also a political watch item in a year when Bihar's alliance arithmetic is always on the table. HAM's weight is local. Manjhi's personal authority inside it is not easily substituted from Delhi.

Dengue in September

North India is in peak dengue months. A minister flying from Patna to Delhi after a viral illness is not a special medical puzzle. The puzzle is the gap between a discharge in Patna and an ICU bed four hours after landing at AIIMS. That gap usually means either a missed diagnosis or a rapid drop in platelets and oxygen. Both are common in dengue with warning signs.

No official confirmation of dengue had been posted by the ministry or the hospital at the time of writing. The correct sentence is still the one the hospital sources used: suspected dengue, tests underway, breathing support as required. Treating an 80-year-old in that window is about fluid, oxygen and watching for plasma leakage, not about a press note.

What happens next

Cabinet work can be reassigned for days without a formal change of portfolio. A longer stay would force the Prime Minister's Office to name who signs MSME files. For HAM, the question is who speaks in Patna if Manjhi remains sedated or isolated.

The next fact that matters is a signed AIIMS bulletin: confirmed diagnosis, current oxygen need, and whether he is still in ICU. Until that sheet exists, the verified record is admission at 5 p.m., ICU at 9 p.m., age 80, fever, breathlessness, suspected dengue after a Patna discharge.