Kottayam: Veteran Congress leader and former Meghalaya governor, M M Jacob, died on Sunday. He was 90.
Jacob breathed his last at a private hospital in Pala, near his home, in Kottayam district. He hails from Ramapuram on the outskirts of Pala town.
He had served as union minister of state three times. He is also the first Keralite to become the deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha in 1986.
He was appointed governor of Meghalaya in 1995 and again in 2000 for a second term. He also discharged the function of the governor of Arunachal Pradesh for some time in 1996.
The funeral will be held at the cemetery of St Augustine's Forane Church, Ramapuram, at 2 pm on Monday.
He was born on August 9, 1928 as the son of Mundackal Ulahannan Mathew and Rosamma. He finished his schooling from Manchadimattom Primary School and St Augustine's School, Ramapuram.
While studying at University College in Thiruvananthapuram, he was drawn to the heat of the freedom struggle and had to drop studies. Later, he finished studies from Sacred Heart College, Thevara; Loyola College, Chennai; and Lucknow University.
A post-graduate in Political Science, he also has a degree in Social Work from Chicago University.
He joined social activism participating in the Bhoodan Movement. In 1952, he became the block secretary of the Congress party in Pala. In 1954, he joined the Bharat Sevak Samaj. He contested the Assembly elections twice from Pala against Kerala Congress leader K M Mani. In 1970, he lost to Mani by a meagre margin of 374 votes and in 1980 by 4,566 votes.
In 1982 and 1988, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha. He worked as an MoS in charge of parliamentary affairs and water resources under prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and later in the Narasimha Rao government, handling home affairs.
He had the opportunity to address the United Nations general assembly representing India in 1985 and 1993. He was also an observer of the first democratic elections held in South Africa in 1994.
Apart from holding several top party positions, Jacob also served as the managing director of Congress' mouthpiece Veekshanam daily and the editor of Congress Review, a fortnightly published from Thiruvananthapuram.
His wife Achamma had died earlier. The couple has four daughters - Jaya, Jessy, Elizabeth and Rachel.
