MUMBAI, (Reuters) – Bal Keshav Thackeray, one of India’s most polarising politicians and leader of an influential right-wing Hindu nationalist party that has ruled Mumbai for much of the past two decades, died today aged 86, one of his doctors said.
Thackeray, the founder and president of the hardline Shiv Sena (Tiger Army) party, was one of the most prominent and outspoken figures of India’s Hindu nationalist movement, and rose to prominence with his fiery rhetoric against immigration in India’s richest city.
Thackeray, who was admitted into a central Mumbai hospital in July, died of cardio-respiratory arrest at his home, the doctor, Jalil Parker, said.