Harekrushna Mahtab was born at Agarpada village in Bhadrak district of Odisha to Krushna Charan Das and Tohapha Debi in an aristocratic Kshatriya family.

He was elected as the General Officer Commanding of Congress Sevadal for the AICC session at Puri in 1932 and he was arrested when the party was banned.

He participated in the movement against untouchability in 1934 and opened his ancestral temple to all for the first time in Odisha.

He was nominated to the Congress Working Committee by Subhas Chandra Bose in 1938 and continued till 1946 and again from 1946 to 1950.

During his tenures as the Chief Minister, he played significant role in the merger and integration of former princely states, shifting of the capital from Cuttack to Bhubaneshwar and the sanction and construction of the multi-purpose Hirakud Dam Project.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1962 from Angul and became the vice-president of the Indian National Congress in 1966.

He received the Sahitya Academy award in 1983 for the third volume of his well-known work, Gaon Majlis.