Cabinet Minister Haji Hussain Ansari laid to rest with full state honours, CM & other cabinet colleagues pay last respects

Deoghar: Minister for Minority Welfare Haji Hussain Ansari on Sunday was laid to rest with full state honours at his ancestral village of Pipra located under Margomunda block of Madhupur sub division.

Chief Minister Hemant Soren himself reached the ancestral village of Haji Hussain Ansari and paid his tributes to the senior JMM leader. He also interacted with the family members and offered his condolences. 

The Chief Minister said that demise of Haji Hussain Ansari was not only a major loss for the state but for him also it was a personal big loss. He said that demise of Haji Saheb is very painful. Hemant Soren said that despite Haji Hussain Ansari not being physically present his personality, work culture and thoughts would be always alive among the people.

Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Ravindranath Mahto,  Rural Development Minister Aalamgir Aalam,  Health Minister Banna Gupta, Agriculture Minister Badal and Gandey MLA Sarfaraz Ahmed also paid their tributes to the departed leader.

Dumka DIG Sudarshan Prasad Mandal, Deoghar DC Kamleshwar Prasad Singh, SP Ashwini Kumar Sinha and other senior police and administrative officers were also present on the occasion.

Haji Hussain Ansari passed away on Saturday afternoon at Medanta Hospital.

He was 73. He had won from Madhupur seat of State Assembly on a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha ticket.

The Minister was admitted at Medanta Hospital where he was undergoing treatment for health related issues including Coronavirus for which he had detected negative a day earlier, heart and kidney related ailments but his condition failed to improve and late Saturday afternoon he breathed his last in the hospital.

The JMM MLA was also the chairman of Jharkhand Haj Committee. He had served as cabinet minister in four occasions. For the first time had served as rural development minister in 2009 when JMM supremo Shibu Soren had formed the government.

Later when Arjun Munda became the Chief Minister with support of JMM he was made minorities welfare minister. On the third occasion on August 4, 2013 when Hemant Soren came into power for his first stint as the Chief Minister he was again made the minorities affair minister. In 2020 after JMM came to power in Jharkhand Haji Hussain Ansari was once again included as minister.

Haji Hussain Ansari had started his political innings with the Congress but joined the JMM in the 1990s. Originally from Madhupur he did his study from Deoghar. He won from Madhupur seat in the year 1995, 2000, 2010, 2019 and in the year 2004 had also served as leader of opposition.