Mumbai: Veteran socialist leader Mrinal Gore, who earned the sobriquet ‘Paniwali Bai’ for her efforts in bringing drinking water supply to Goregaon, a Mumbai suburb. passed away today after a brief illness.
Family sources said Gore(84), a former MP, died at a hospital at Vasai in neighbouring Thane district.
A pioneer and visionary, Gore was one of the last of the Socialist pillars in Mahrashtra.
Mrinaltai, as she is respectfully referred , Gore was elected to Parliament on a Janata Party ticket in 1977.
Gore belonged to that special set of women who took to politics in a period when it was virtually unthinkable for women to be involved in public work.
Influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India exhortation as a youngster, Mrinal chucked a promising career in medicine to devote herself to organizing the poor and the disenfranchised.
For more than half a century, she has been involved with a series of organizations and leading protests both on the streets and in the corridors of power, focusing on women’s rights, civil rights, communal harmony, and trade union activities. Over a decade ago, in a protest against price rise, Gore led a rally of hundreds of women brandishing rolling pins from Churchgate to Azad Maidan in South Mumbai. The first time she held a similar protest on the issue was in 1972.
Gore and other colleagues of her husband Keshav set up the Keshav Gore Smarak Trust which supports community-centered activities and social awareness campaigns and actions after he died in 1958. (Agencies)