The 13Th PresidenT of india Pranab Kumar Mukherjee (born 11 December 1935) is the president-elect of India. Mukherjee was a senior leader of theIndian National Congress until he resigned from political office preceding his election as president on 22 July 2012. He will take office as the 13th President of India on 25 July 2012. Pranab Mukherjee began his political career with the Indian National Congress in 1969 under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He became one of her top lieutenants and was often described as her "man for all seasons". His rise was meteoric in the early phase of his career and he became a cabinet minister in Indira Gandhi's government in 1973. Mukherjee rose through a series of cabinet posts to become the Finance Minister of India from 1982 to 1984. Mukherjee was Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha from 1980 to 1985. Mukherjee was sidelined from the Congress during the Rajiv Gandhi era. He had viewed himself, and not the rookie Rajiv Gandhi, as the rightful successor to Indira Gandhi. Mukherjee lost out in the ensuing power struggle. He formed his own political party, the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress, but later merged it with Congress in 1989 after reaching a political compromise with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Mukherjee's political career revived when Prime Minister Narasimha Rao chose to appoint him as Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission and subsequently as a union cabinet minister in the 1990s. He served as the Minister of External Affairs (Foreign Minister) from 1995 to 1996 in Rao's cabinet. Mukherjee was the principal architect of Sonia Gandhi's entry into Indian politics in the 1990s. He became the elder statesman of the Congress party during this period. Mukherjee was Leader of the House in the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2012. He served as the Minister of Defence from 2004 to 2006 and again served as the Minister of External Affairs from 2006 to 2009. He was the Finance Minister from 2009 to 2012 in the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Mukherjee has received several accolades and honors. In 1984, he was rated as the best Finance Minister in the World according to a survey of Euromoney magazine. In 2010, he was awarded "Finance Minister of the Year for Asia" by Emerging Markets, the daily newspaper of record for the World Bank and the IMF. In December 2010, The Banker recognised him as the "Finance Minister of the Year." The government of India honored him with the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award of India, in 2008. Mukherjee was born at Mirati in the Bengal province of British India. His father, Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee, was a member of the Indian National Congress during the Indian independence movement and had spent more than ten years in British jails.His mother's name was Rajlakshmi Mukherjee. He has an elder sister named Annapoorna Mukherjee. K. K Mukherjee later became a member of West Bengal Legislative Council (WBLC) from 1952 to 1964, and was also the President of the District Congress Committee in Birbhum. Mukherjee attended the Suri Vidyasagar College in Suri (Birbhum), then affiliated with the University of Calcutta. He holds a Master of Arts degree in History and Political Science and also a degree in law from the University of Calcutta. Mukherjee was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Wolverhampton in 2011. He was also awarded an honorary D.Litt by the Assam University in March 2012. Professional career Mukherjee began his career as an upper-division clerk in the office of the Deputy Accountant- General (Post and Telegraph) in Calcutta before he became a college-teacher and later a journalist. He worked for noted Bengali publication Desher Dak (Call of Motherland). Mukherjee was chairman of the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata. He is also the former chairman and president of the Rabindra Bharati University and the Nikhil Bharat Banga Sahitya Sammelan. Mukherjee is a former trustee of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad and the Bidhan Memorial Trust. Mukherjee used to be on the Planning Board of the Asiatic Society. Personal life Pranab Mukherjee married Suvra Mukherjee on July 13, 1957 and has two sons, Abhijit and Indrajit and a daughter, Sharmistha Mukherjee. He is inspired by Deng Xiaoping & has quoted him quite frequently. His hobbies are reading, gardening and music. His son, Abhijit Mukherjee, is a Congress MLA from West Bengal while his daughter is a Kathak dancer. Mukherjee celebrates the Durga Puja at his ancestral home in Mirati village in West Bengal's Birbhum district. He makes it a point to be at Mirati village every year to take part in the four-day rituals, the puja having a 'social dimension' for him. "I want to avail of this opportunity to be with the people of my area," Mukherjee said during a puja ceremony on October 4, 2011. Political career Mukherjee got involved in the politics of the Indian National Congress in 1969. He had managed the successful election campaign for independent candidate Krishna Menon during the by- elections in Midnapore. Prime Minister and Congress supreme leader Indira Gandhi recognized his talents and made him a part of her party. Gandhi gave Mukherjee a seat in the Rajya Sabha (upper house) of the parliament from the Congress party in July 1969. Mukherjee was later re-elected in 1975, 1981, 1993 and 1999. Mukherjee became a staunch Indira Gandhi loyalist. He was described as her "man for all seasons". Mukherjee's rise was meteoric in the early phase of his career and he was appointed Union Deputy Minister of Industrial Development in Indira Gandhi's cabinet in 1973. Mukherjee was active in the Indian cabinet during the Emergency. Ruling politicians of the day including Mukherjee were accused of using extra-constitutional power centres to "wreck established norms and rules of governance". The Shah commission under the Janata party indicted Mukherjee but the commission was itself later indicted for stepping "outside its jurisdiction" in 1979. Mukherjee emerged from it unscathed and rose through a series of cabinet posts to become the Finance Minister of India from 1982 to 1984. His term was noted for his work in improving the finances of the government that enabled Indira Gandhi to score a political point returning the last instalment of India's first IMF loan. It was Pranab Mukherjee — in his stint as Indira Gandhi's Finance Minister — that had signed the letter appointing Dr. Manmohan Singh as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Indira Gandhi made Mukherjee the Deputy Leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha in 1978. He was made Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha in 1980. Mukherjee was considered the top ranking Indian cabinet minister and he even presided over the cabinet meetings in the absence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The assassination of Indira Gandhi put Mukherjee's career with the Congress in jeopardy. The Rajiv Gandhi era saw the Congress sideline some Indira loyalists including Mukherjee for harbouring ambitions of becoming Prime Minister. Mukherjee saw himself, and not the rookie Rajiv Gandhi, as the rightful successor to Indira Gandhi. He even floated the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress (National Socialist Congress) party in 1986 in West Bengal which he would merge with the Indian National Congress three years later after reaching a compromise with Rajiv Gandhi. Many analysts, over the years, have attributed the muting of Mukherjee's political aspirations as the supreme leader due to his inability to emerge as a magnetic mass leader. Mukherjee's political career revived following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 when P.V. Narasimha Rao chose to appoint him as deputy chairman of the Indian planning commission and subsequently as a union cabinet minister. Mukherjee served as External Affairs Minister for the first time from 1995 to 1996 in Rao's cabinet. Mukherjee today is considered to be a Gandhi family loyalist and the principal architect of Sonia Gandhi's entry into politics, a mentoring responsibility he is still believed to be shouldering. He was made General Secretary of the AICC in 1998–99 after Sonia Gandhi became Congress President. Mukherjee was made President of the West Bengal Congress in 2000 and held the position until his resignation in 2010. He had earlier held the position in 1985. Mukherjee became the Leader of the House in the Lok Sabha in 2004. He contested and won a Lok Sabha seat from Jangipur in West Bengal. Mukherjee retained his seat in the 2009 elections. Mukherjee was briefly considered for the post of the largely ceremonial Indian presidency in 2007. But his name was subsequently dropped after his contribution in the Union Cabinet was considered practically indispensable. Mukherjee held many important posts in the Manmohan Singh government. He had the distinction of being the Minister for various high profile Ministries including Defence, Finance, and External Affairs. Mukherjee also headed the Congress Parliamentary Party and the Congress Legislative Party which consists of all the Congress MPs and MLAs in the country apart from being Leader of the House in Lok Sabha and Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee President. Mukherjee ended his affiliation with the Indian National Congress and retired from active political life following his election as President in 2012. The Economic Times had noted: "[the] decades of activity in critical all-round roles make [Mukherjee's] exit both a structural and generation shift. With him, the last of the Congress triumvirate – along with Rao and R Venkataraman – who formed the core team of Indira/Rajiv regimes bows out. While Rao became PM, Pranab's political marathon too ends where [Venkataraman's] did, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan." Government Positions Defence Minister Sonia Gandhi appointed Mukherjee Minister of Defence of India when the Congress came to power in 2004.