Mumbai, Nov 11 (IANS): Maharashtra leaders remembered and paid tributes to the freedom-fighter and India’s first Education Minister, Bharat Ratna Maulana Abul Kalam Azad on his 135th birth anniversary, here on Saturday.

Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis paid homage to Maulana Azad whose birthday is also celebrated as National Education Day all over India.

In his tribute, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar said that Maulana Azad played a crucial role in directing India’s economy and development through his efforts to improve education and social conditions in the country.

Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar recalled how Maulana Azad always strived “to create a positive energy among people through his effective writings and speech”.

“Maulana Azad insisted that every citizen should get the basic right to education by formulating the national education policy of India,” Pawar pointed out.

Other senior leaders across the political spectrum have paid tributes and recalled Maulana’s contributions to laying the foundations of the Indian education system.

A child prodigy, an academic genius, scholar and a linguist, Maulana Azad plunged headlong into the Indian Freedom Movement at a young age, was jailed, served as the youngest President of Indian National Congress (1923), aged just 35, and later again from 1940 when the epochal Quit India Movement was also launched.

After Independence, Maulana Azad became India’s first Education Minister. He passed away in 1958 aged 69, and was conferred the country's highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna, posthumously in 1992.