National

Gajapati Case Diary

A tale of four suicides, an ailing maharaja and property worth over Rs 500 crore in one of India’s poorest regions

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Gajapati Case Diary
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  • Gajapati is a sleepy town 237 km to the south of state capital Bhubaneswar
  • On August 21, the palace manager was found dead along with three siblings
  • They had allegedly consumed poison to commit suicide
  • Before the deaths, the local MLA had led a campaign demanding action against the manager and her brother for keeping the  ‘maharaja’ under ‘house arrest’ and trying to sell off royal properties

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Tumultous and tragic devel­op­ments over the past two weeks have thrown the Gaja­pati palace in the southern Orissa town of Parlakhemundi and the ailing head of the local royal family, a former MP, to the centre of a raging scandal that has all the ingredients of a Bollywood potboiler, a suicide pact included.

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On August 21, the body of Ananga Manjari Patra, the 54-year-old palace manager, was recovered from her Jangam Sahi residence along with those of her siblings Bijaylaxmi and Sanjay. They had not been seen outside the house for several days and seemed to have consumed poison. Another brother, Santosh, was found lying on the floor, writhing in pain, and was rushed to a hospital in Ber­hampur, where he died the next day.

A fortnight ago, this sleepy town, 237 km from state capital Bhubaneswar, had been suddenly abuzz with rumours that Gopinath Gajapati, the 74-year-old grandson of Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati, had been put under “house arrest” in the palace by Ananga Manjari and Sanjay. Overnight a new outfit—Parla Maharaja Suraksha Committee (PMSC)—sprang up under the local Congress MLA, K. Surya Rao, and it filed a police complaint against the brother-sister duo, accusing them of preventing Gajapati from meeting his “well-wishers” and trying to sell off palace properties.

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Matters came to a head on August 14 with PMSC staging a sit-in in the town, forced the government to intervene. Gajapati, down with multiple health problems, including diabetes, hypertension and infection in the throat and chest, was flown to Chennai the next day and admitted in a private hospital. His daughter, Kalyani Devi, tends to him there and the state government, which sent health minister Atanu Nayak to Chennai to inquire about his health, has promised to bear all the medical expenses.

With Gajpati in the hospital, the focus once again turned on his properties, inc­luding the Gajapati palace of 1835 vintage that stands over six acres, besides about 100 acres of land in Orissa and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, and a chocolate factory in Chennai. With an estimated worth of around Rs 500 crore, the properties have been a major bone of contention bet­ween Gajapati and his younger brother Jagannath Gajapati Narayan Deo. A court case is going on since 2006.

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Dead

Ananga Manjari Patra, ­deceased Gajapati palace manager

While the PMSC accused Ananga Manjari and Sanjay of trying to misappropriate royal properties, Kalyani wrote to CM Naveen Patnaik seeking a probe into the allegations and any transaction involving Gajapati’s assets during the past 30 years. Gajapati, apparently acting on the advice of his daughter, lost no time in sacking his manager and her brother. This added to the public suspicion and anger against Ananga Manjari, who had become close to the former ruler during his two terms as a Congress MP representing Berhampur from 1989 to 1996, when she worked as his personal assistant.

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Today, even as a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the state Crime Branch is probing the sibling suicides, the tragedy has turned Ananga Manjari’s family and the PMSC into warring camps. Her elder brother, Amulya Patra, has lodged an FIR in Parlakhemundi against six persons, including MLA Rao, former BJD district unit chief Basant Das, his son Debi Prasad and BJP district unit president G. Rabana, besides a private TV channel, accusing them of tarnishing the family’s image and forcing his siblings to commit suicide.

“The allegation that they had confined the ‘maharaja’ in the palace as they wanted to grab royal property caused them immense trauma, which was aggravated when dharnas and rallies were held against them,” says Amulya.

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MLA Rao, however, holds his ground saying, “If they did nothing wrong, why did they commit suicide?” Unfazed by reports that three suicide notes seized from the house pointed an accusing finger at him, he insists there was a property angle to the controversy.

His allegations, however, are not borne out by what lawyer L.K. Adhikari, who has advised Gajapati on legal matters on the past, recalls about the property-­related case involving the former Parlakhemundi ruler and his younger brother. “In 2010,” says Adhikari, “the Parlakhemundi subordinate judge court had passed an interim order preventing anyone from selling off the royal properties. As far as I know, no immoveable royal property has been sold since then.”

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Ailing

Gopinath Gajapati is under treatment in a Chennai hospital

While the results of the SIT inquiry are being awaited with bated breath, and government officials remain tight-lipped about the exact contents of the suicide notes, Adhikari’s statement lends credence to the hypothesis that Ananga Manjari paid the price for being close to Gajapati—something her rivals did not like, leading to relentless campaigns against her and her family.

Meanwhile, Gajapati’s failing health and his vastly reduced political clout are also being blamed for his slackening hold on the affairs of the palace and the tragedy that has befallen it. The ‘maharaja’, sources say, had become bitter and disillusioned when he was not renominated by the Congress for the Berhampur Lok Sabha seat in 1996 and the then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao contested from there and won. In the 1998 election, Gajapati contested the seat on a BJP ticket and lost to the Congress candidate, Jayanti Patnaik, wife of former chief minister J.B. Patnaik.

Crestfallen, he joined the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in 2009 which, too, did not give him a ticket. Now, as the former maharaja tosses and turns on his hospital bed in Chennai, he can look back at the events of the last fortnight only with a growing sense of loss.

By Rakesh Dixit in Parlakhemundi

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