Pranab Kumar Mukherjee : ( born 11 December 1935) is the 13th and current President of India, in office since July 2012. In a political career spanning six decades, Mukherjee was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and occupied several ministerial portfolios in the Government of India. Prior to his election as President, Mukherjee was Union Finance Minister from 2009 to 2012, and the Congress partys top troubleshooter. Mukherjee got his break in politics in 1969 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi helped him get elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, on a Congress ticket. Following a meteoric rise, he became one of Indira Gandhis most trusted lieutenants, and a minister in her cabinet by 1973. During the controversial Internal Emergency of 1975–77, he was accused (like several other Congress leaders) of committing gross excesses. Mukherjees service in a number of ministerial capacities culminated in his first stint as finance minister in 1982–84. Mukherjee was also Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha from 1980 to 1985. Mukherjee was sidelined from the Congress during the premiership of Rajiv Gandhi , Indiras son. Mukherjee had viewed himself, and not the inexperienced Rajiv, as the rightful successor to Indira following her assassination in 1984. Mukherjee lost out in the ensuing power struggle. He formed his own party, the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress , which merged with the Congress in 1989 after reaching a compromise with Rajiv Gandhi. Mukherjees political career revived when Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao appointed him Planning Commission head in 1991 and foreign minister in 1995. Following this, as elder statesman of the Congress, Mukherjee was the principal architect of Sonia Gandhis ascension to the partys presidency in 1998. When the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came into power in 2004, Mukherjee, never a mass leader, won a Lok Sabha (the popularly elected lower house of Parliament) seat for the first time. From then until his resignation in 2012, Mukherjee was practically number-two in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh s government. He held a number of key cabinet portfolios— Defence (2004–06), External Affairs (2006–09) and Finance (2009–12)—apart from heading several Groups of Ministers (GoMs) and being Leader of the House in the Lok Sabha. After securing the UPAs nomination for the countrys presidency, in July 2012 Mukherjee comfortably defeated P. A. Sangma in the race to Rashtrapati Bhavan , winning 70 percent of the electoral-college vote. Early life and career Mukherjee was born in the village of Mirati in Birbhum district in the Bengal province of British India (now in West Bengal ). His father, Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee, was active in the Indian independence movement and was a member of West Bengal Legislative Council between 1952 and 1964 as a representative of the Indian National Congress and was the member of AICC. His mother was Rajlakshmi Mukherjee. [1][2] He attended the Suri Vidyasagar College in Suri (Birbhum), then affiliated with the University of Calcutta . [3] He subsequently earned an MA degree in political science and history and also an LL.B degree from the department of law of the University of Calcutta. [2] He began his career as an upper- division clerk in the office of the Deputy Accountant-General (Post and Telegraph) in Calcutta . [citation needed] In 1963, he began teaching political science at the Vidyanagar College (in South 24 Parganas) [4] and he also worked as a journalist with the Desher Dak (Call of Motherland) before entering politics. [5] Early political career Mukherjees political career began in 1969, when he managed the successful Midnapore by-election campaign of an independent candidate, V. K. Krishna Menon . Then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, recognised Mukherjees talents and recruited him to her party, the Indian National Congress. [6] He became a member of the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Indian parliament) in July 1969. Mukherjee was re-elected to the house in 1975, 1981, 1993 and 1999. [3]
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 09:29:35 +0000
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