Congress leader and former Union minister Manikrao Gavit passes away

Manikrao Gavit, former Congress MP who represented the tribal-majority Nandurbar Lok Sabha constituency for a record nine times, died early on Saturday morning. He had been ill for some time and died in a hospital in Nashik at the age of 87.

Gavit represented Nandurbar between 1980 and 2009. He lost the 2014 elections and fell out with the Congress after his son Bharat Gavit was not given a Lok Sabha ticket in the 2019 polls.

While Gavit did not quit the party, his son joined the BJP in 2019. His daughter Nirmala Gavit, who was a two-time Congress MLA from Igatpuri, joined the Shiv Sena in the run-up to the 2019 Assembly elections but lost her seat.

Gavit served as a minister of state for social justice in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government.