New Delhi, Aug 18 (PTI): President Pranab Mukherjee's wife Suvra Mukherjee, who had been ailing for some time, passed away on Tuesday. She was 74.

The First Lady breathed her last at 10.51am at the Army Research & Referral Hospital here, where she had been undergoing treatment for the last 11 days.

“It is informed with deep sorrow that First Lady Smt. Suvra Mukherjee passed away this morning (August 18, 2015). She left for her heavenly abode at 1051 AM,” Rashtrapati Bhawan spokesman Venu Rajamony said in a statement.

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 son Abhijit, a Congress MP, and Indrajit, and 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 Calcutta 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.

Suvra was an accomplished Rabindra Sangeet singer as well as a highly talented painter who had many group and solo exhibitions to her credit. She considered her mother who was herself a painter as the source of her creative inspiration and her works won critical acclaim.