Janaki Ballabh Patnaik
politician from Odisha, India (1927-2015)
Janaki Ballabh Patnaik (3 January 1927 – 21 April 2015) was an Indian politician who had been 25th Governor of Assam from 2009 to 2014. A leader of the Indian National Congress, he was Chief Minister of Odisha from 1980 to 1989 and again from 1995 to 1999, holding that post for the longest time on record before Naveen Patnaik. In 1950, he became the President of the Odisha state unit of the youth wing of the Congress. In 1980, he became the Union Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation and Labour from 16 January to 7 June.
Personal life
He was born in a humble Karan family. His father Gokulananda Patnaik was a reputed writer and teacher. He married Jayanti Patnaik in 1953, a four-time Member of Parliament and first Chairperson of National Commission for Women. He completed his schooling from Khurda High School, he graduated in Sanskrit (Honours) from Utkal University in 1947 and received his master's degree in political science from the Banaras Hindu University in 1949.
He was accused of involvement in the Anjana Mishra case.
Death
He died on Tuesday, 21 April 2015, aged 88 at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
“Janaki Ballabh Patnaik” enters the record as politician from Odisha, India (1927-2015). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Janaki, Ballabh and Patnaik can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1896096. VIAF identifies the subject as 50372067. The Library of Congress control number is n91008758. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 2015, 2009 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Janaki Ballabh Patnaik” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.