Thiruvananthapuram:
Kerala Labour Minister Shibu Baby John has decided to give up cigarettes, his "companion" for the past 32 years, as a birthday gift for his mother who turns 80 on Sunday.
"My ammachi (mother) is turning 80, this Sunday and I have decided that as my gift to her, I will forego my 'companion'. I know it's going to be a tough ask because now I smoke more than 30 cigarettes a day and have been doing it for so many years," John, who took his first puff as a schoolboy, told IANS.
The 49-year-old second time legislator is the son of legendary trade union leader and veteran politician Baby John who passed away in 2008.
John recalled that he had tried stopping smoking a few times without success, and the last such occasion was after he was made a minister for the first time last in May.
"I could not stop it, but this time I will, we will wait and see," said John, the lone legislator of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (Baby John) and elected from the Chavara constituency, which his father represented for more than three decades.