New Delhi: Maharashtra strongman and Union minister in Narendra Modi’s Cabinet, Gopinath Munde died on Tuesday after sustaining multiple internal injuries in a road accident in the national capital early this morning.
A brother-in-law of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, Munde is survived by his wife and three daughters, one of whom is an MLA from Parli in Maharashtra’s Beed district. 64-year-old Munde was inducted into the Union Cabinet for the first time last week.
Modi tweeted, extremely saddened & shocked by the demise of my friend & colleague Gopinath Mundeji. He was a true mass leader. Hailing from backward sections of society, he rose to great heights & tirelessly served people. As a mark of respect to Munde, the national flag was being flown at half mast in Delhi, state capitals and Union Territories on Tuesday. The minister has died of multiple internal injuries. No external wound was found on his body. When he was brought to Trauma Centre, his pulse and hearth beat were not working,” AIIMS spokesperson Dr Amit Gupta said after a team of doctors conducted a post-mortem on his body.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said Munde suffered cervical fractures and oxygen to the brain and lungs may have been cut off following the injuries. His liver had tear at 2-3 places and there was one-and-half litres of blood in his abdomen because of the injury, he said.
President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and a host of national leaders cutting across political spectrum expressed shock over his death. They paid glowing tribute to a man who rose from humble origins to become a popular leader.
The body was brought to the BJP national headquarters where Ansari, Modi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, LK Advani, and top RSS brass were among those who placed wreaths and paid respects to the departed leader.
His body was later in the day taken to Mumbai and briefly kept at his Worli residence, before being shifted to the Mumbai BJP office. Munde will be accorded state funeral at his home town Parli in Beed district of Maharashtra on today at 4:30 pm.
Munde was considered the architect of social engineering in BJP since the mid-1990s and was responsible for adding parties like RPI and Rashtriya Samaj Party and Swabhimani Paksh into the Sena-BJP alliance that virtually swept the polls winning 42 of the 48 seats.
He had only last night attended a meeting of the Union Council of Ministers called by the Prime Minister and was proceeding to Mumbai for work when the accident occurred.
Munde was recently caught in a row over his educational qualifications with Congress alleging that he “graduated” in 1976 from a college established in 1978. Expressing grief over the untimely demise of 64-year-old Munde, the President said, “In his death, we have lost a veteran leader who always worked for the common man”.
Bureau Report
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