Mumbai: Senior NCP leader R R Patil, who has been undergoing treatment for oral cancer, passed away in Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital. The 57-year-old was placed on life support and doctors attending to him had said earlier that he was critical but was responding to treatment.

Raosaheb Ramrao Patil, a prominent NCP leader from Sangli in western Maharashtra, was operated on last December at Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai.

He had served as Maharashtra Home Minister and Deputy CM. He was forced to resign as Deputy CM in 2008 after he tried to downplay 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Answering a question if it was an intelligence failure Patil said, “In big cities, small incidents happen. It is not a total failure”.

But he was reinstated as state Home Minister in 2009 after the NCP swung back into power. Patil was a popular leader in the rural pockets of Maharashtra due to his clean image.