Who was Gurudas Kamat? An advocate turned politician

New Delhi, Aug 22: Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Gurudas Kamat died at a private hospital in New Delhi on Wednesday, Mumbai party officials said. He was 63. Kamat also served as the former Mumbai Congress President.

Kamat was born in Ankola village of North Kanara district in Karnataka on 5 October, 1954 but has lived in Mumbai. His association with Congress dates back to four decades when he joined the National Students' Union of India (NSUI). Rising from the ranks, he went on to become the national president of Indian Youth Congress, president of MRCC and eventually a union minister of state in the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA).

An advocate by profession, Kamat was a commerce graduate from R.A. Podar College, Mumbai and had a law degree from the Government Law College, Mumbai.

He was a Member of the Parliament for the Mumbai North West constituency of Maharashtra in 2009 and Mumbai North East constituency of Maharashtra in 1984, 1991, 1998 and 2004.

He had also served as the Minister of State for Home Affairs with an additional charge of Minister of Communications and Information Technology during 2009 to 2011.

Kamat had become infamous in UPA-2 after he declined the portfolio of the post of minister of state for drinking water and sanitation in 2012--implying that it was not meaty enough for someone of his political experience. He had faced severe criticism for the move. The portfolio was eventually allotted to former rural development minister Jairam Ramesh. Kamat had contested the 2014 general election but lost to the Shiv Sena's Gajanan Kirtikar by nearly 1,83,000 votes.