Leaders across party lines paid their last tributes to Education Minister Jagannath Mahto who died on Thursday fighting lung infection at Chennai Hospital. In the morning the mortal remains of Education Minister Jagarnath Mahto reached Ranchi airport. From there, the body was directly brought to the Jharkhand Assembly, where he was paid tribute with state honours.
At Ranchi’s Birsa Munda airport, hordes of leaders from ruling as well as opposition parties including Chief Minister Hemant Soren, BJP legislature Party Leader and former chief minister Babulal Marandi, Union minister Annapurna Devi, Cabinet ministers Mithilesh Thakur and Alamgir Alam were present to receive his body.
On route from Airport to Assembly JMM leaders and cadres chanted Jagarnath Mahto. Assembly Speaker Rabindranath Mahto, Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Parliamentary Affairs minister Alamgir Alam, Union minister Annapurna Devi, Jharkhand Cabinet ministers Champai Soren, Badal, Banna Gupta and Mithilesh Thakur, Leader of Opposition Babulal Marandi, Independent MLA Saryu Roy and many others offered floral tributes.
Regarded as ‘Tiger’, Mahto for his commitment and strong will power passed away while receiving treatment at Apollo Hospital in Chennai, where he was admitted on March 14 this year due to lung problems. He had lung transplant surgery in the same hospital but it did not work long.
Paying his tributes, Speaker Ravindra Nath Mahato said that Jagarnath da was a popular leader. It is very painful for him to leave like this. The Speaker said that he had very close relations with Jagarnath Mahato since the time of agitation for separate state of Jharkhand. He was always concerned about the development of the state. While in the opposition, he had raised such issues in the House which were directly related to the public. He was much active in raising the demands of Para teachers and when his party came to power he got the responsibility of the education minister of the state, he first paved the way for the solution of Para teachers.
Echoing the views of Speaker, Congress MLA Deepika Pandey Singh said that Jagarnnath Mahto was concerned about how the youth of Jharkhand would get employment. Now he is not among us, but Jharkhand can be developed by following the path shown by him. “Jagarnath da, famous in his area as Tiger, really lived like a tiger in his last days. May God give him a place in his holy feet,” said Singh.
Koderma's MP and Union Minister of Education (State) Annapurna Devi reached the Assembly and paid tributes to Jagarnath Mahato. The Koderma MP in her condolence message said that she deeply condoled the demise of Mahto. Expressing condolences, she said that Jagarnath ji's untimely demise is extremely painful and an irreparable loss for Jharkhand. She said that she got the opportunity to work with Jagarnath ji as a member of the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly for a long time and we fought together on many issues of public interest. In the recent past, we had many long discussions with him for the educational development of the state, on some points we wanted to work together.
After the Assembly, his body was kept at the JMM office. From there, it was taken to his native place Simrakuli Alargo in Bokaro district where the last rites were performed with state honours.