Veteran Peasants & Workers Party (PWP) leader, former Minister and a four-time legislator Narayan Dnyandeo Patil passed away in his home town of Kolhapur in Western Maharashtra on Monday, in the wake of a brain haemorrhage that he suffered recently.
Prof Patil, who was brother-in-law of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, had been battling for life after a brain haemorrhage. He breathed his last at a private hospital in the early hours of Monday.
He had also been infected by Covid-19 from which he had recovered fully despite his advanced age.
He was 93 and is survived by his wife Saroj - who is the sister of Sharad Pawar and Pratap Pawar.
A champion of the cause of farmers, peasants, mill-workers, casual labourers and down-trodden, Prof. Patil had served as Maharashtra Member of Legislative Council for four terms.
Patil was a Cooperation minister from 1978-1990 in the Progressive Democratic Front government headed by Pawar when he became Chief Minister for the first time, as the PWP was an ally.
Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and several senior political leaders including Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, ministers Jayant Patil, Nawab Malik, Ashok Chavan and Balasaheb Thorat and leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP mourned the death of Prof Patil,
Despite close family connections with the powerful Pawar clan, Prof. Patil maintained his independent identity. A high respected leader, he never compromised on his principles and charted his own path with political convictions, said a close colleague, Dr. Vaishali Patil.
Born on July 15, 1929 in a peasant family in the small Dhavali village in Sangli, Patil completed his matriculation and then joined the Rajaram College in Kolhapur for his graduation.
After doing his MA in Economics from Willington College in Sangli, he acquired a LLB degree from Pune University. He later worked as a professor at Chhatrapati Shivaji College, Satara, and then became the Principal of KBP College in Islampur, Sangli.
While serving the Shivaji University Kolhapur (SUK), Prof. Patil served as a Dean and Senate Member.
Long before he pursued his academic career, in 1948, Patil had joined the PWP, to which he belonged till the end, became a MLC for four terms, served as the General Secretary and later as Convenor (1999-2002) of the Democratic Front Government of Congress-Nationalist Congress Party which ruled the state for 15 years from 1999-2014.
An excellent orator and able legislator, Prof. Patil was appointed head of the legal committee of the Maharashtra government to examine the border dispute with Karnataka in mid-2000s.