Pranab Mukherjee
December 11, 1935 – August 31, 2020
Indian Congress politician who held many cabinet posts and was President of India from 2012 to 2017.
Biography
Pranab Mukherjee was born in 1935 in Mirati, a village in Bengal, the son of a Congress member of the West Bengal Legislative Council. He studied at Suri Vidyasagar College and took master's and law degrees at the University of Calcutta, then worked as a schoolteacher, a clerk in the accountant-general's office, a college lecturer in political science and a journalist.
Indira Gandhi helped bring him into the Rajya Sabha in 1969, and he became one of her most trusted lieutenants, entering her government in 1973 and serving as finance minister from 1982 to 1984 and as leader of the upper house. Dropped by Rajiv Gandhi in 1986, he formed the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress, which merged back into Congress in 1989.
P. V. Narasimha Rao made him deputy chairman of the Planning Commission in 1991 and foreign minister in 1995. He backed Sonia Gandhi's leadership of the party, and after Congress returned to power in 2004 he entered the Lok Sabha for the first time and led the house while serving Manmohan Singh's government as defence minister, external affairs minister and, from 2009, finance minister.
In July 2012 he was elected President of India, defeating P. A. Sangma with about 70 percent of the electoral college. He served one term, retired in 2017, and received the Bharat Ratna in 2019. He died in August 2020.
Offices held
Affiliations
Party membership
- Jan 1, 1967 – Jan 1, 1971 Bangla Congress Bangla Congress (infobox 1967-1972; party dissolved 1971)
- Jan 1, 1972 – Jan 1, 1986 Indian National Congress
- Jan 1, 1986 – Jan 1, 1989 Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress, which he founded
- Jan 1, 1989 – Aug 31, 2020 Indian National Congress Indian National Congress, second membership after the 1989 merger
Education
- University of Calcutta M.A. in political science and history and LL.B., University of Calcutta
