SHILLONG, Sep 19: Making suggestions for a befitting celebration of the golden jubilee of the state, Assembly Speaker Metbah Lyngdoh on Monday pitched for a full-size statue of the first woman Cabinet minister in the country, late Mavis Dunn Lyngdoh, on the premises of the State Central Library here.
Appreciating the state government’s efforts, Lyngdoh, in a letter to Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, said that it will be proper to honour Mavis Dunn Lyndoh, who was the first woman in India to become a Cabinet minister.
“Her political career began in 1937, when she was elected a member of the Assam Legislative Assembly as an independent candidate and she was the first woman at the age of 33 to occupy the post,” the Speaker said.
Back in the day, Mavis Dunn Lyngdoh had held the Health portfolio, and had opened posts of nurses in government hospitals for all trained women, irrespective of public or private institutions they acquired their skills from.
Mavis was defeated in the elections of 1946. She then largely retired from politics, but continued to be active in social work.
