Bhubaneswar: Leader of Opposition in Odisha Assembly and BJD president Naveen Patnaik will visit New Delhi to accept the Russian Embassy’s honour to his father Biju Patnaik for his contribution in the ‘Stalingrad Operation’ during World War II, party sources said.
Russian Ambassador to India, Denis Alipov, has invited Patnaik to attend the event in the national capital as Guest of Honour May 9, which is observed as Victory Day in Russia to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany.
“Patnaik will attend the function in New Delhi on May 9,” the sources said.
Alipov, in a letter to Patnaik, said, “Among the heroes who we pay tribute to is your late father, Honourable Shri Biju Patnaik ji, a towering personality and a valiant pilot of the Indian National Airways, who had participated in the Stalingrad Operation, supplying weapons to the besieged Red Army.”
The Battle of Stalingrad, which took place from July 1942 to February 1943, marks the successful Soviet defence of the city of then Stalingrad during World War II.
The letter said Russia will honour those “who stood together against Nazism in anti-Hitler coalition, and commemorate the heroic deeds of the people of the former Soviet Union and its allies, who bore the brunt of the most brutal conflict in human history”.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be the Chief Guest at the event.
Biju Patnaik was the Chief Minister of Odisha for two terms — from 1961 to 1963 and again from 1990 to 1995. He passed away on April 17, 1997.
PTI
