JMM stalwart Simon Marandi dies at 74

RANCHI: JMM stalwart Simon Marandi (74) died late on Monday night at a private hospital in Kolkata. He was one of the founding members of the JMM.
Chief minister Hemant Soren, Jharkhand Assembly speaker Rabindranath Mahto, state Congress chief Rameshwar Oraon, Congress legislative party leader Alamgir Alam, health minister Banna Gupta, among others, expressed their grief at Simon’s passing.“He contributed to the separate statehood movement. He will be sorely missed,” Hemant said in a tweet.
Simon, who was JMM’s central vice president, was admitted to Kolkata’s R N Tagore Hospital on March 14 to undergo treatment for a cardiac ailment. He died around 11:45pm on Monday. He was suffering from multiple ailments and was medically critical, JMM sources said.
Simon’s elder son Dinesh William Marandi, who is the incumbent MLA from Littipara constituency in Pakur, did not respond when contacted. But the family’s close associates said Simon’s mortal remains reached his home in Pakur’s Hiranpur on Tuesday by road from Kolkata. “Simon Da will be laid to rest at his ancestral village, Dumariya, in Littipara block on Wednesday morning,” an associate said over the phone.
It was, however, not known whether Hemant will attend Simon’s last rites on Wednesday. Hemant has been camping in Madhupur to canvas for JMM candidate Hafizul Hassan since April 9 and is expected to return to Ranchi on Wednesday evening.
Simon cut his teeth into student politics at an early age in the then undivided Bihar. In 1977, Simon became an MLA for the first time after defeating the then incumbent lawmaker Marang Murmu by 149 votes. He went on to win the seat in 1980, 1985, 2009 and 2017. He was also the state rural development minister in Hemant’s cabinet from 2013 to 2014.
He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Rajmahal (ST) constituency in 1989 and 1991. In 2014, he switched to BJP and contested in Littipara on a BJP ticket. Three years later, when Littipara went to vote after the death of its incumbent MLA Dr Anil Murmu, Simon returned to the JMM fold and was handed the ticket. He went on to win. However, he did not contest the polls in 2019 due to ill health and JMM fielded his son.