By IANS,
New Delhi : One of India’s last Gandhians, Rajya Sabha MP Nirmala Deshpande, passed away here Thursday morning. Deshpande, who was popularly known as didi, was 79.
She was born in Nagpur on Oct 17, 1929 to Vimlabai and P.Y. Deshpande, who was also a MP.
The diminutive Deshpande, a familiar figure who accompanied visiting presidents, prime ministers and other dignitaries at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial Raj Ghat, started her career as a lecturer in political science at Nagpur’s Morris College.
Deshpande, who joined Acharya Vinoba Bhave’s ‘bhoodan’ movement in 1952 and undertook a 40,000 km walk with him, had been nominated twice to the Rajya Sabha — in 1997 and in 2004. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.