A Bahujan Samaj Party Member of Parliament has offered a gift of Rs 20 lakh to a girl for treatment of blood cancer with which she has been suffering for the past eight months
Twenty-one-year-old Alka Tiwari had moved a local court in Kanpur, about 80 km from Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow, to seek permission for mercy killing because of the agony she was undergoing on account of the terminal disease.
Her family had been rendered penniless on account of the expensive treatment and the periodical blood transfusion that she had to undergo.
"Either permit mercy killing for me or make some arrangement for my bone-marrow transplant, which would require about Rs 20 lakh," Alka stated in her application before the court.
Taking note of her plight, the court issued a notice to the government advocate and fixed the next hearing in the case for October 17.
What came as a surprise gesture was the offer from local Rajya Sabha member Ganga Charan Rajput.
While making the offer for bearing the expense of the treatment, Rajput told media persons in Kanpur, "I have written a letter to Vice President Hamid Ansari seeking his sanction for taking the money out of my constituency fund to save the life of a young girl battling with blood cancer."
Meanwhile, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad too was understood to have sent a message to the girl's family offering free treatment by the Union government.
Azad is stated to have responded after the editor of a national television channel drew his attention to the helpless family and suffering of the young girl.
The treatment offer has brought smiles to the face of Alka's mother Surajmukhi, who told media persons, "We had literally given up on Alka's treatment. Whatever we had -- land, house and jewelry -- everything has been sold off and we are now left with nothing to meet the cost of her periodical blood transfusion. We could never even imagined that someone would come forward to bear the huge cost of her treatment at the Christian Medical College."
She added, "We can once again see light at the end of a tunnel."