The newly elected Pune Deputy Mayor and senior Republican Party of India (Athawale) leader, Navnath Kamble, died of a heart attack on Tuesday. The three-time corporator was in his mid-50s.
Mr. Kamble was out for a morning walk when he suffered a heart attack at around 8 a.m. in the city’s Mundhwa area. He was rushed to Ruby Hall clinic where he passed away.
Mr. Kamble, who began his political career with the Dalit Panthers movement in 1977, was the mainstay of his party’s unit in Pune, winning as a corporator for the first time in 1997.
He later won in 2002 and in the recently-concluded elections to the Pune Municipal Corporation. A prominent face of the RPI (A) in Pune district, Mr. Kamble served as its Pune unit president twice: the first time between 1990 and 1996 and then from 2008 to 2009.
Mr. Kamble was elected as deputy Mayor in March this year following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s unprecedented win in the PMC poll. Since RPI (A) had supported the BJP in these polls, it had conceded the deputy mayor’s post.
Terming his death as an “irreparable loss to the party”, Mr. Athawale cancelled a function in Mumbai and hastened to Pune to attend the last rites of Mr. Kamble.
All administrative offices within the PMC remained closed as mark of respect to the leader who was cremated at Koregaon Park crematorium.
