Agartala, Feb 22 (TIWN) Deputy CM Jishnu Debbarma, other ruling, opposition MLA paid tribute to veteran CPI-M leader Late Bajuban Reang. His body was brought in the Secretariat.

BJP MLA Sudip Barman stated that the veteran leader played a role as bridge between communities and was significant leader to boon the harmony of the state.

Deputy CM Jishnu Debbarma called him a great, popular leader among the masses.

“I personally knew him. Indeed, a great leader”, Jishnu Debbarma told media.

Seven-time Lok Sabha member and veteran Left leader Bajuban Reang died here on Friday night after a protracted illness, CPI-M sources said on Saturday. He was 79.

The prominent tribal leader of the northeast is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) central committee member Badal Choudhury said Reang, also a three-time member of the Tripura assembly, died at a private hospital where he was admitted early on Friday.

After a funeral procession attended by a large number of Left leaders, members and the public, as per his wishes, Reang''s body was donated to the government-run Govind Ballabh Pant Medical College and Hospital.

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, former Chief Minister and CPI-M politburo member Manik Sarkar and the party''s state secretary Gautam Das were among the host of leaders who condoled the death.

Born in a farmer''s family in Bokafa in southern Tripura, Bajuban Reang, a former Tripura agriculture minister, was also a champion javelin thrower and a sports enthusiast.

Soon after completing his graduation, he joined politics initially with the Congress and was elected in the union territory assembly polls in 1967 on a Congress ticket.

Subsequently, he joined the CPI-M where he rose up the party hierarchy. He was re-elected to the assembly two more times and also became the President of the Tripura Rajya Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (TRUGP), a frontal body of the CPI-M.

The TRUGP, one of the oldest tribal based organisations in India, was formed in 1948.

A CPI-M central committee member, Reang was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1980. Though he lost the two parliamentary polls of 1989 and 1991, the tribal leader was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1985, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2009.