Vinayak Mete dies in car crash: Face of Maratha movement who served his community throughout life

Shiv Sangram party leader and former member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council Vinayak Mete was killed after a vehicle hit his car on Mumbai-Pune Expressway on Sunday morning. The 52-year-old was a prominent Maratha leader and a staunch supporter of reservation for the community. 

Mete was at the forefront of the agitations in the past to demand reservations for the Maratha community which fructified, and he headed a key committee that was executing the project to construct a grand memorial for Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the Arabian Sea.

Hailing from Rajegaon village in Kej tehsil of Beed district in the Marathwada region, had been a member of the state Legislative Council for five terms even after coming from a family with no political background. 

Mete was a leader of the Maratha Mahasangh and was sent to the Legislative Council for the first time in 1995 after the Mahasangh extended support to the then Shiv-Sena-BJP government. Later, he floated the Maharashtra Lokvikas Party. 

Mete then came in close contact with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar and joined his party. He became vice-president of the NCP and was made MLC twice. During his third term, he quit the NCP and supported the BJP with his newly formed Shiv Sangram party. The BJP ensured that he completed his third term as MLC and sent him to council for a fourth time as well.

Mete was coming from Beed via Pune to Mumbai in his SUV to attend a Maratha panel meeting scheduled with top state leaders this afternoon, when the mishap occurred. He was rushed to the MGM Hospital in Kamothe, Navi Mumbai where the doctors declared him dead on admission.

A doctor at MGM Hospital later told mediapersons that he didn`t exhibit any signs of life and with grievous head, neck and limbs injuries, had been killed instantaneously in the accident.

Chief Minister Eknath Shinde -- who rushed to the hospital along with Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis -- announced a probe into the incident.

The Raigad Police have set up eight teams to investigate the accident and shall also interrogate the SUV driver Eknath Kadam, who has survived and also a police bodyguard, who is presently said to be critically injured.