Berhampur: The cremation of former MLA V Sugnana Kumari Deo, who died in a Chennai hospital on Saturday, was performed with full state honour in Odisha’s Ganjam district on Sunday.
Following her demise, the body of Deo, a veteran BJD leader and member of erstwhile royal family of Khallikote in Ganjam, was flown in a special aircraft from Chennai to the party office in Bhubaneswar in the evening. From Bhubaneswar, it was taken to her the royal palace at Khallikote.
Thousands of people including political leaders and activists, her supporters, social activists, eminent personalities and common men thronged the palace to have last darshan of Deo. Subsequently, she was taken in a grand procession to the cremation ground of the royal family. Her last rites were performed by a Brahmin boy after the guard of honour.
Deo was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Chennai. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik along with senior party leaders flew in to Chennai to visit her at the hospital on Friday night. Hours after, she breathed her last at 12.44 am on Saturday. She was 87.
Born on August 5, 1937, Deo was first elected to the Odisha Assembly in 1963. She was an eight-time MLA from Khallikote and a two-time MLA from Kabisuryanagar. She was elected as MLA in 1963, 1974, 1977, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2004, 2009 and 2014.
She was respected by leaders cutting across party lines and used to be addressed as ‘Khallikote Rani’, having married the erstwhile royal scion of Khallikote late Purna Chandra Mardaraj Deo.
