Mario Cuomo, the three-time governor of New York and a leading voice of the Democratic Party's liberal wing who turned down several invitations to seek the US presidency, died yesterday at his home in Manhattan. He was 82.

Cuomo was first elected as governor in 1982 and came to national attention two years later when he gave an electrifying keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, criticizing the policies of then-President Ronald Reagan and challenged Reagan's metaphor likening America to a "shining city on a hill."

His speech defining Republicans as looking out only for the well-off and Democrats as champions of the middle class and the poor propelled Cuomo to the forefront of the party leadership.

His death came on the day his eldest son, Andrew Cuomo, delivered inaugural addresses in Manhattan and Buffalo, New York, after being sworn in for his own second term as governor.

The governor's office said in a statement the elder Cuomo, who served as New York's 52nd chief executive from 1983 through 1994, had died of "natural causes due to heart failure this evening at home with his loving family at his side."

The former governor, long a celebrated orator who was a favorite of the Democratic Party's progressive contingent, was hospitalised on November 30 for treatment of a heart condition.

President Barack Obama, in a statement issued from Hawaii, where he was vacationing, saluted the former governor as "an unflinching voice for tolerance, inclusiveness, fairness, dignity and opportunity."