Rosamma Punnoose dies at 100

SALALAH: CPI leader and member of the first Assembly Rosamma Punnoose died on Saturday morning due to age-related ill heath. She was 100.

Rosamma was the first person to be sworn in as a legislator soon after the first assembly polls in Kerala in 1957. The death happened at Salalah in Sultanate of Oman on Saturday morning. She is the wife of ex-MP P T Punnoose. She is survived by wards Thomas Punnoose and Geetha Jacob. The burial will take place at Thiruvalla Marthoma Church.
      
Punnoose was also the first pro-tem speaker of the Kerala assembly, as she had also administered the oath to other legislators at that time. She was staying in Oman with her son for the past two years.

Rosamma was born on May 13, 1913 at Thiruvalla in Pathanamthitta. Though she began her political career with the Travancore State Congress in 1939, she joined the Communist Party of India in 1948. A law graduate, she returned to the Kerala assembly for the second time in 1987. She quit politics in 1998, when she stepped down as chairperson of the Kerala State Women’s Commission.

Her sister Accama Cherian was a popular freedom fighter. Both sisters were jailed in 1939. Her husband was also a prominent Communist Party of India leader, and was elected to the second Lok Sabha in 1957.

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