Janaki Ballabh Patnaik (3 January 1927 – 21 April 2015) was an Indian politician who had been

Governor of Assam This is a list of governors of Assam, and other offices of similar scope, from the start of British occupation of the area in 1824 during the First Anglo-Burmese War. The Governor of Assam is a nominal head and representative of the President ...

from 2009 to 2014. A leader of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

, he was

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...

from 1980 to 1989 and again from 1995 to 1999, holding that post for the longest time on record before

Naveen Patnaik Naveen Patnaik (born 16 October 1946) is an Indian politician serving as the current and 14th Chief Minister of Odisha. He is also the president of the Biju Janata Dal, a writer and has authored three books. He is the longest-serving chief min ...

. After the completion of his early education at Khurda High School, he passed his B.A. degree in Sanskrit from the

Utkal University Utkal University (UU) is a Public university in Bhubaneswar, Khordha district, Khordha, Odisha, and is the oldest university in Odisha, the state, and the 17th-oldest university in India. It is a teaching-cum-affiliating university. The pre ...

in 1947 and passed his M.A. degree in political science from the Banaras Hindu University in 1949. In 1950, he became the President of the Odisha state unit of the youth wing of the

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

. In 1980, he became the Union Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation and Labour. The construction of

New Jagannath Sadak New Jagannath Sadak (also known as Nua Jagannath Sadak/Jagannath Sadak )- The road to Jagannath Dham, Puri : Total length: 96 km, covering three major districts of Odisha - Puri, Khurdha, and Nayagarh. {, class="wikitable" , - , Name of t ...

(Chandanpur of Puri district to Sarankul of Nayagarh district) is one of his major contributions to the transportation and tourism of Odisha.

Controversy

He was involved in the

Anjana Mishra rape case Anjana Mishra rape case was a high-profile rape case that occurred in state of Orissa (India) in 1999. Anjana Mishra, ex-wife of an Indian Forest Service officer Subash Chandra Mishra, was raped on 9 January 1999. The case had created a furore in ...

Death

He died on Tuesday, 21 April 2015, aged 88 at

Tirupati Tirupati () is a city in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of the Tirupati district. The city is home to the important Hindu shrine of Tirumala Venkateswara Temple and other historic temples and is refe ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. On Monday, 20 April 2015, he had gone to attend the convocation of

Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha National Sanskrit University, earlier known as Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha is a Central university (India), central university in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. In addition to regular courses at undergraduate (bachelor's) and postgraduate ...

, of which he was chancellor, and also visited the Lord

Venkateswara Temple, Tirumala Sri Venkateswara Swami Vaari Temple is a Hindu temple situated in the hill town of Tirumala at Tirupati in Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh, India. The Temple is dedicated to Venkateswara, a form of Vishnu, who is believed to have appeared ...

. Later in the night, he complained of severe chest pain and was subsequently shifted to Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) where he died at around 3:00 am. on 21 April. He leaves behind a legacy of having translated the

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...

, the

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...

and the

Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700- verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' (c ...

into his mother tongue, as he was a Sanskrit-Odia scholar.

References

External links

The Indian Express on Patnaik's marginalisation
The Hindu
Assam Governor JB Patnaik passes away in Tirupati
Indian Express
Farewell to JB Patnaik
1927 births 2015 deaths Chief Ministers of Odisha Indian National Congress politicians Utkal University alumni Leaders of the Opposition in Odisha Chief ministers from Indian National Congress Governors of Assam India MPs 1967–1970 India MPs 1971–1977 India MPs 1980–1984 People from Tirupati Lok Sabha members from Odisha Civil aviation ministers of India Labour ministers of India Members of the Cabinet of India Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation Recipients of the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award Indian National Congress politicians from Odisha {{Odisha-INC-politician-stub