Pranab Mukherjee wins Presidential election

New Delhi: Pranab Mukherjee was today elected as the 13th President, marking a new journey for the veteran Congress leader after over four decades of life in active politics.

Mukherjee, UPA nominee, got 5,64,469 vote value, well beyond the half-way mark of 5,25,140 in an electoral college of over 10.5 lakh when counting of votes polled by the MPs and MLAs of 20 of the 30 states was completed.

His rival P A Sangma, who was backed by BJP and some other opposition parties like AIADMK and BJD, could manage only 2,57,466 vote value, according to Rajya Sabha Secretary General V K Agnihotri, who is the Returning Officer for the poll.

Mukherjee, 76-year-old Congress leader, brings to the top Constitutional post a wealth of experience as he has held key positions in the party and government, including holding the portfolios of Finance, Defence and External Affairs.

He established a clear lead right from the beginning when counting of votes of MPs completed and maintained it across the states, except the BJP-ruled ones. He sprang a surprise in BJP-ruled Karnataka where he got the votes of 117 MLAs against BJP's 103 in the 224-member Assembly.

Out of 748 MPs, who had voted, he secured 527 votes with a value of 3,73,116 against 206 for Sangma which has a value of 1,45,848.

Fifteen votes including that of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav were invalid. Of these, nine were to be in favour of Mukherjee while six for Sangma.

Voting for the Presidential election took place on July 19. The electoral college for the poll comprises MPs and MLAs.

Mukherjee was a top ranking minister and presided over the Union Cabinet meetings in the absence of the Prime Minister during 1980-1985.

Of course, Mukherjee had his own bad days in Congress which he had to quit in the mid 80s after he had evinced interest in becoming the Prime Minister after the death of Indira Gandhi in 1984.

It took some time before he came back into the party but once he was in, there was no stopping his rise once again.

Mukherjee became Finance Minister again in 2008 after P Chidambaram was shifted to Home Ministry in the wake of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

Again his importance was seen when P V Narasimha Rao made him Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission as well as Minister of External Affairs. In between he had to quit because he ceased to be a member of Parliament and came back to the Cabinet after re-election.

Mukherjee started his public life in the 60s in Bangla Congress during the time of late Chief Minister Ajoy Mukherjee of the United Front government when Jyoti Basu was Deputy Chief Minister in West Bengal. He was general secretary of Bangla Congress.

A post-graduate in political science and history, he can recollect any event of historical importance or mundane political and other events, a matter of envy to many of his colleagues.

Mukherjee has five books published to his credit on political and economic issues and under his editorial guidance, the history of Congress was published in which there was a candid admission of excesses during the Emergency.

He got the best Parliamentarian Award in 1997. Ten years later, he was awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian honour.

In Congress Party, Mukherjee became AICC treasurer in 1978. Journalists and AICC media department officials still recall Mukherjee's tenure as the Media Department Chairman of the party. Mukherjee was AICC General Secretary in 1998-99.

In 1984-1991, 1996 and 1998, Mukherjee was Chairman of the Campaign Committee of AICC, besides being a member of the Congress Working Committee and Congress Election Committee.

Mukherjee held all the key portfolios including Defence from May 2004 to October 2006 and External Affairs from October 2006 to May 2009 besides the Finance portfolio, which he held again in 2009 after a gap of 27 years.

In the past, he also held portfolios like Commerce and Steel and Mines, Revenue and Banking (Independent Charge), Shipping and Transport, Industrial Development, Commerce and Supply besides presiding over a number of Parliamentary Committees.

Mukherjee got married to Suvra on July 13, 1957 and has two sons--Abhijit and Indrajit-- and daughter Sharmistha. Abhijit is a Congress MLA in West Bengal.

Son of a senior Congress leader Kinkar Mukherjee from West Bengal, Pranab had a brief stint as lawyer, teacher and journalist before he was embedded to his destiny of politics in 1969, when he became a member of Rajya Sabha.