Country’s first female Dalit mayor Aruna Sainya passes away

Aruna Sainya, the country’s first female Dalit Mayor, has died following a prolonged illness, family sources said on Monday.

45-year-old Sainya, who breathed her last on Sunday, was suffering from cancer for the last six months, they said.

Apart from being the country’s first female Dalit Mayor, she was the first woman Mayor of the Gwalior Municipal Corporation (GMC) from 1995-2000, the sources said.

Ms. Sainya, who was elected GMC Mayor at the age of 31, was instrumental in regularising 648 daily wage workers for the first time in the GMC’s history, they said.

Her last rites were performed last evening at the Laxmiganj Crematorium, the sources said.