For the 77-year old Mr Pranab Mukherjee or Pranab Da to friends the crowning moment of his over four decades of service to the people came on a fiery Friday summer day.

Soon after a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, the Chairperson of the UPA, Ms Sonia Gandhi, stepped out of 7 Race Course Road to announce that Mr Mukherjee will be the Presidential candidate of the UPA.

It has been a slow and arduous trek from village Mirali in West Bengal's Birbhum district where Mr Mukherjee was born on December 11, 1935.

Mr Mukherjee was first elected to the Rajya Sabha as a Bangla Congress candidate in July 1969. During his long innings in public life he was to be elected to the Rajya Sabha four more times. Mr Mukherjee entered the Lok Sabha for the first time in 2004 and again won the Lok Sabha election in May 2009.

It was in January 1973 that Mr Mukherjee began his career as a Minister at the Centre when he was appointed as Union Deputy Minister for Industrial Development.

This was just the beginning of a long innings at the Centre which was to see him serve as Union Minister of State for Finance from October 1974 to December 1975 when he was made Union Minister for Revenue and Banking with independent charge.

For two years, beginning January 1980, the burden of the Ministry of Commerce and Steel and Mines were on the shoulders of Mr Mukherjee. It was in January 1982 that he was appointed Finance Minister, a position he held till December 1984.

Though kept out of the Rajiv Gandhi Government between 1984 and 1989, he was holding key organisational positions in the Congress party. Mr Mukherjee has also been the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission from June 1991 to May 1996. He also held the portfolios of external affairs and commerce in the Narasimha Rao Government.

Between October 2006 and May 2009, in the UPA-I Government, he donned the cap of the External Affairs Minister. Incidentally, this was his second innings at the Ministry as he was also the Foreign Minister between February 1995 and May 1996.

In addition, Mr Mukherjee was on the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank from 1982 to 1985.

An avid reader, Mr Mukherjee is said to be in the habit of reading two books together. Another ritual that he follows annually is to travel to his village for the annual Durga puja .

In fact some years ago, he cut short his foreign tour to head directly to his village to perform the puja.

Mr Mukherjee has three children – two daughters and one son who recently entered the West Bengal Assembly.

> ashphadnis@thehindu.co.in

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