President Pranab Mukherjee's wife passes away

New Delhi, Aug 18: President Pranab Mukherjee's wife, Suvra Mukherjee, who was admitted to the Army Hospital (Research and Referral), passed away on Tuesday at 10.51 am.

President Mukherjee tweeted and said, "It is informed with deep sorrow that First Lady, Mrs Suvra Mukherjee passed away this morning at 1051 am."

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"She was brought to the hospital with a respiratory problem. She is a heart patient and has been kept in the intensive care unit," a hospital spokesperson told.

Suvra, an accomplished Rabindra Sangeet singer, was 74. Suvra was admitted to the Army Hospital on August 7 after she complained of breathlessness and discomfort.

Since then she was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Besides her husband, Suvra is survived by two sons Abhijit, a Congress MP, and Indrajit and one daughter Sharmistha, who unsuccessfully contested the Delhi Assembly elections on a Congress ticket.

Mukherjee had cut short his visit to Odisha on August 7 and returned to the national capital after he was informed about his wife's health condition.

Mukherjee got married to Suvra on July 13,1957. The First Lady hailed from Jessore, now in Bangladesh, and had migrated to Kolkata at the age of 10 years. "We are not like today's couples.

It's not a lovey-dovey relationship and we don't express our emotions overtly," Suvra was quoted as having said on the eve of the crowning moment of her husband's political career when he assumed the office of President on July 25, 2012.

Oneindia News

(With inputs from PTI)