Veteran Congress leader, eminent litterateur and journalist and three-time Chief Minister of Odisha and former Governor of Assam Janaki Ballabh Patnaik passed away at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh in the wee hours on Tuesday. He was 89 and is survived by his wife Jayanti Patnaik, son Pruthvi Ballabh and daughters Sudatta and Supriya.
Patnaik had arrived at Tirupati on Monday to attend the convocation of the Tirupati Rashtriya Sanskrit University, of which he was the Chancellor. He was the chief guest. late in the night, he felt severe pain in the chest and was admitted to the Sai Venkateswar Institute of Medical Sciences, a private hospital, where he passed away at about 4 am.
Patnaik’s body was flown to Bhubaneswar in the afternoon. The cremation would take place at the Swargadwar in Puri on Wednesday, family sources said. leaders of all political parties and personalities from all walks of life expressed profound grief over the demise of Patnaik, who was described as the ‘Chanakya of Odisha politics”.
As a mark of respect, the Odisha Government announced a State holiday on Tuesday and a seven-day State mourning. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who was scheduled to attend an Akshaya Trutiya ceremony at Pipili in Puri district, cancelled his programme following JB Patnaik’s death.
Born on January 3, 1927 at Rameswar village in Khordha district, Patnaik was the Chief Minister for two consecutive terms from 1980 to 1989 and then again from 1995 to 1999.
He was elected to the lok Sabha for the first time in 1971 and became a Minister in the Indira Gandhi Government. He was later made Cabinet-rank Minister for Civil Aviation before being chosen by Indira Gandhi as Chief Minister in 1980 as the Congress had won elections with a massive mandate under his leadership.
He was appointed the Governor of Assam in 2009 and was among the few Governors appointed by the UPA Government who were allowed to complete their full terms by the NDA Government led by Narendra Modi.
Besides his political career, JB, as Patnaik was called, was also an eminent litterateur and won many literary awards. He won the Central Sahitya Akademi Award for his Odia translation of Bankim Chandra’s novels titled Bankim Chandra Upanyasmala in 2001 and the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award for his book Bairagya Shataka, a translation of Bhartruhari’s celebrated Sanskrit work, in 1996.
He also translated the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Shrimad Bhagabat Gita into Odia, all of which were highly acclaimed works. His other works wereSindhu Upatyaka and Gautam Buddha.