The funeral of the union minister Gopinath Munde is expected to take place after 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Munde, who recently took charge as the rural development minister, died of injuries and cardiac arrest suffered from a road accident in Delhi on Tuesday morning. Munde's car was hit by a Tata Indica at Prithviraj Road-Tughlak Road intersection, while the minister was on his way to the Indira Gandhi International airport.
Munde was rushed to the AIIMS hospital in a critical condition. Doctors tried to revive him, but the minister passed away on Tuesday at around 8 a.m. His death came in as a big shock for BJP leaders, who expressed grief over the tragic incident.
Munde's mortal remains were shifted to the BJP headquarters in Delhi, where several political leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President Hamid Ansari, L.K. Advani, Sushma Swarajk, Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, PA Sangma, Ram Vilas Paswan, Rahul Gandhi, Harish Rawat and Harsimrat Kaur paid homage to the union minister.
Later in the afternoon, Munde's mortal remains were airlifted from Delhi to Mumbai so that his last rites could be carried out at his Parali-Vaijnath village, Beed district. His body was shifted to his Worli residence, where leaders including Uddhav Thackeray, Sanjay Raut, Hemamalini, actors Ritesh Deshmukh and Vivek Oberoi, paid their respects to Munde. In the evening, the minister's body was taken to BJP headquarters at Nariman Point for party workers to pay tributes to him.
Gopinath Munde's mortal remains brought to Mumbai BJP office pic.twitter.com/AyC1HiTlPW
— ANI (@ANI_news) June 3, 2014
On Wednesday morning (4 June), his mortal remains will be taken to his village in Beed district to enable the locals to pay their homage. His last rites will be performed with state honours in the grounds of the Vaijnath Sugar Factory at Pangri village.
"Government has decided that state funeral would be accorded to late Gopinath Munde. Funeral will take place at his home town in Beed district tomorrow," a home ministry spokesperson told the Times of India.
The national flag will fly at half mast on Wednesday at the place where the funeral will take place. Munde's eldest daughter Pankaja, a BJP MLA, is expected to perform the last rites on Wednesday evening. Top political leaders, national leaders, VVIPs and several thousands of people are likely to attend the funeral.
Lok Sabha to be Adjourned on Opening Day
The first session of the 16th Lok Sabha was to begin today (4 June) and end on 11 June, but the sudden death of Munde has forced a change in the schedule of the parliamentary session.
The swearing-in of the pro-tem speaker Kamal Nath will take place in the Rashtrapati Bhawan, or the Presidential Palace, at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. However, the opening day session of the Lok Sabha will be adjourned after an obituary reference to Munde is taken up.
The newly-elected members of the Lok Sabha will be sworn in on Thursday (5 June) and the election of the speaker will take place on Friday (6 June). President Pranab Mukherjee's address to a joint session of Parliament will take place on Monday (9 June), reported NDTV.
