CHENNAI: Union minister and former Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was suffering from a serious liver ailment, passed away on Tuesday at a city hospital.

Earlier, an attempt to harvest liver from a brain dead donor from a government hospital here had proved futile as the man died before doctors could operate on him on Tuesday night, they said.

A team from Global Hospitals, where Deshmukh was admitted on August 6, had planned to retrieve the liver from the 31-year-old donor at the hospital, but he died, forcing them to look for another donor, the sources said.

“The hospital is looking for a liver donor,” they said. Asked whether they were desperately looking for a liver, they said, “In a way, yes.”

The 67-year-old former Maharashtra chief minister had shown signs of improvement and been on and off the ventilator before being prepared for a transplant, the sources said.

Deshmukh was brought here from Mumbai in an air ambulance in a critical condition.

(With PTI inputs)