Maharastra: Comrade Lahanu Kom
VETERAN leader of the CPI(M) and the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) in Maharashtra, Comrade Lahanu Shidva Kom, ex-MP and ex-MLA, passed away early this morning on May 28, 2025 after a brief illness. He was 86 years old. He leaves behind his wife Hemlata (also a Party and AIDWA leader), a son, a daughter, and three grandchildren.
Lahanu Kom was born on November 10, 1938 in an adivasi poor peasant family of Aagwan village in Dahanu tehsil in Palghar district. He joined the undivided CPI in 1959 at the young age of 20, soon became a whole-timer, and worked successively in the Dahanu, Jawhar and Talasari tehsils for over six decades. He grew up in the Party under the guidance of the legendary leaders Comrades Shamrao Parulekar and Godavari Parulekar.
Due to the Party's leadership of numerous intense class and mass struggles (too numerous to mention here), he spent several years in detention, from 1962-66 and again in the Emergency from 1975-77. He rose to become a CPI(M) state committee member and then a state secretariat member, and a state vice president of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) for several decades.
Lahanu Kom was elected to the Thane Zilla Parishad (ZP) in 1962 and was re-elected twice. He was elected a member of the Lok Sabha from the Dahanu (ST) seat in the historic 1977 post-Emergency Parliamentary elections and remained in that post till the Lok Sabha dissolution in 1980. After that he was elected thrice to the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha from the then Jawhar (ST) seat in the 1980, 1985, and 1990 elections, and remained an MLA till 1995. He consistently raised several peoples' issues and tribal issues effectively in the state assembly.
Way back in 1962, Shamrao and Godavari Parulekar set up the Adivasi Pragati Mandal, the founder committee members of which were renowned names in Maharashtra, like Acharya P K Atre, Balraj Sahni, and Prabodhankar Thakare. Lahanu Kom was elected the president of this body, and he remained so till his demise. With the initiative taken by Lahanu Kom, the mandal has built several schools, hostels, junior colleges and a senior college of Arts, Science and Commerce which began in 1994 and is named after Comrade Godavari Shamrao Parulekar. All these quality institutions in Talasari and Dahanu tehsils have a total strength of over 8,000 students, most of them poor adivasi girls and boys, and they employ a staff of nearly 200. Lakhs of students have got good education here. Lahanu Kom always used to take the initiative to build the SFI in these institutions.
In Lahanu Kom's demise, the CPI(M) and AIKS have lost one of their fighting and popular mass leaders. He was loyal to the Red Flag for over 66 years of his Party life.
The funeral of Lahanu Kom will begin on May 29 at noon from the CPI(M) district committee office at Talasari.
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