Sonia Gandhi condoles death of journalist Dileep Padgaonkar

NEW DELHI: Congress President Sonia Gandhi today condoled the death of veteran journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, saying the void created by his passing away would be hard to fulfil.

Remembering him as "an intellectual, historian and thinker", Gandhi said the void created by his passing away would be hard to fulfil, for he espoused a brand of mature, balanced and unwavering journalism that's gradually hard to find.

Gandhi also expressed her solidarity with family and friends of Padgaonkar.

Seventy-two-year-old Padgaonkar, a former editor of The Times of India, was unwell for the past several weeks and died at a hospital in Pune today, family sources said.

He had also served as one of the three members of the interlocutors' group on Jammu and Kashmir, set up by the previous government after continuous unrest in the Valley in 2008.