Kamat cremated with state honours in Mumbai

Mumbai : Thousands turned up for the funeral of former union minister and senior Congress leader Gurudas Kamat, who was cremated with full state honours here on Thursday afternoon, party officials said.

Top Congress leaders including Mallikarjun Kharge and former Chief Ministers Prithviraj Chavan, Ashok Chavan and Sushilkumar Shinde offered their last respects to Kamat.

Thousands of party activists lined up as his body was kept at his Chembur home.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, his cabinet colleagues Vinod Tawde and Prakash Mehta and leaders of the Shiv Sena and other parties also paid their homage to a leader who was respected across party lines.

Later, thousands of party workers and members of the public joined the funeral with Kamat's body draped in the tricolour as it wound its way through the crowded localities of Chembur.

After a police gun salute, Kamat's body was consigned to the flames, ironically, at the very same Charai crematorium which he had inaugurated 10 years ago. His only son Sunil, a medico, performed the last rites.

Kamat, 63, a five-time Mumbai MP and former minister of state under then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, died of a massive heart attack in New Delhi on Wednesday morning.