She had always remained in the background, smiling graciously at invited guests from her wheelchair during events held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
First Lady Suvra Mukherjee, President Pranab Mukherjee’s wife of 58 years, died here on Tuesday, it was announced.
The first lady was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Army’s Research And Referral Hospital here two weeks back. President Mukherjee cut short his two-day visit to Odisha and returned to the national capital that evening itself. She was known to be suffering from a heart ailment.
“Suvra Mukherjee died after a cardiac arrest. She was on ventilator till the time of her death,” Army’s Research And Referral Hospital PRO Sanjay Kumar told IANS.
Married to Pranab Mukherjee on July 13, 1957, Suvra Mukherjee was an accomplished Rabindra Sangeet exponent. The couple have two sons and a daughter. Her son Abhijeet Mukherjee is a Congress MP from Jangipur, West Bengal, while daughter Sharmistha is an accomplished dancer and has joined the Congress party. Another son is Indrajit Mukherjee.
Suvra Mukherjee was born in Narail, Bangladesh, where her relatives still live.
During his state visit to Bangladesh in March 2013, President Mukherjee paid his first visit to his “sosur bari”, or in-laws’ house, where the couple were given the traditional welcome accorded to newly-weds, complete with conch-shells being blown and ‘uloo dhoni’ and ‘mangal deep’ aarti.
The grand family welcome at Bhadrabila village, some 9 km from Narail town, probably made up for the physical stress she had to endure, being wheel-chair bound throughout the trip.
She is not known to have accompanied her husband on a foreign tour after that.
Her ancestors had migrated to India in early 1950s after the 1947 partition.