New Delhi, India (BBN)-Gopinath Munde, India's newly-appointed Rural Development Minister, has died in a car crash in the capital, Delhi.
Munde was on his way to the airport to take a flight to his home state of Maharashtra when his car was hit by another vehicle, reports BBC quoting officials.
Doctors at the AIIMS hospital said he was not breathing when brought in and efforts to resuscitate him failed.
Munde, 64, was appointed just last week to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new government.
Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari told reporters: "An accident took place earlier in the morning, following which he was taken to hospital in Delhi. Doctors declared him dead at about 8:00am [02:30GMT]."
"Mr Munde was brought to the emergency department… by his personal assistant and driver. He was sitting in the back seat of his car which was hit by another car or any other vehicle… from the side he was sitting," Dr Amit Gupta of the AIIMS Trauma Centre told reporters.
"On his arrival at the Trauma Centre, there was no spontaneous breathing, no blood pressure, no pulse, no cardiac activity."
Dr Gupta said there were "no major external injuries on his body. We cannot say anything, but clinically we might say that he had a sudden cardiac death".
Prime Minister Modi was among the first to mourn Munde's death.
BBN/AS-03June14-10:40am (BST)
