Senior BJP leader and union minister for rural development Gopinath Munde died this morning of a heart attack after a road accident in Delhi. He was 64.
At about 6.20 this morning, Mr Munde was on his way to the Delhi airport when an Indica car crashed into the minister’s SX4 car at the the Prithviraj Road and Aurobindo Chowk cross-section in the heart of the capital, the police said.
Doctors quoted the minister’s personal staff as saying that the vehicle crashed into the car on the side that the minister was seated in the rear seat. Mr Munde, who seemed to have suffered minor injuries, was in shock, his staff members said. He had asked for water, they said.
Mr Munde’s driver and personal assistant were in the front and were unhurt. They rushed him to the trauma centre at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
“There was no spontaneous breathing and no cardiac activity when he was brought to the hospital,” a doctor said.
The doctors tried to revive the minister, but could not and pronounced him dead at 7.20 am.
The driver of the Indica, an employee of the Imperial Hotel, has been detained, the police said.
Former BJP president and union minister Nitin Gadkari said at the hospital that Mr Munde’s body will be taken to the BJP office at 11 Ashoka Road. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others will pay their respects.
At about noon, the body will be flown to Latur in Maharashtra and then to Parli in Beed district, Mr Munde’s hometown.
Mr Munde’s last rites will be performed in Parli on Wednesday. The union cabinet will meet at 4 pm today to condole Mr Munde’s death.
Mr Munde, who was sworn in as a cabinet minister last week in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet, was to have taken an early morning flight to Mumbai. He was to have addressed a series of public meetings in Beed.