13th President Of India, was Born

 11th December 1935: Pranab Mukherjee, 13th President Of India, was born. 

Pranab Kumar Mukherjee was born in Mirati, a village in Birbhum district of what is now the state of West Bengal on 11th December 1935. He was an Indian politician who served as the 13th President of India from 2012 until 2017. In a political career spanning five decades, Mukherjee was a senior leader in the Indian National Congress and occupied several ministerial portfolios in the Government of India. Before he was elected President, Mukherjee was Union Finance Minister from 2009 to 2012. He was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 2019, by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind. 

Mukherjee got his break in politics in 1969 when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi helped him get elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament of India, on a Congress ticket. Following a meteoric rise, he became one of Gandhi's most trusted lieutenants and a minister in her cabinet in 1973. Mukherjee's service in several ministerial capacities culminated in his first stint as Finance Minister of India in 1982–84. He was also the Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha from 1980 to 1985. 

Mukherjee was sidelined from Congress during the premiership of Rajiv Gandhi. 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 Congress in 1989 after reaching a consensus with Rajiv Gandhi. After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991, Mukherjee's political career was revived when Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao appointed him Planning Commission head in 1991 and foreign minister in 1995. Following this, an elder statesman of Congress, Mukherjee was the principal architect of Sonia Gandhi's ascent to the party's presidency in 1998. 

In 2017, Mukherjee decided not to run for re-election and to retire from politics after leaving the presidency due to "health complications relating to old age." His term expired on 25 July 2017. He was succeeded as President by Ram Nath Kovind. In June 2018, Mukherjee became the first former President of India to address a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) event. Mukherjee was nominated as the presidential candidate of the United Progressive Alliance on 15 June 2012 after considerable political intrigue. The elections were scheduled to be conducted on 19 July 2012 and the results were expected to be announced on 22 July 2012. The nominee of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was P. A. Sangma. To file his nomination for the presidential poll on 28 June, 

Mukherjee resigned from the government on 26 June 2012. In the election, Mukherjee received 713,763 votes, while Sangma had 315,987. Mukherjee was sworn in by the Chief Justice of India on 25 July 2012, becoming the first Bengali to hold the post of President of India. After being administered the oath of office, he stated that we are in the midst of a fourth world war of terror (the third was the Cold war) and what minutes of peace can achieve cannot be achieved in many years of war.



Location: India

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