Pranab Kumar Mukherjee became the 13th President of India and the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces on July 25, 2012. Prior to his election as President, Mukherjee was the Union Finance Minister and the Congress party’s top trouble-shooter.

In a political career spanning six decades, Mukherjee has been a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and occupied several ministerial portfolios. In 2004 when Congress came to power, Mukherjee was made the Minister of Defence, a post which he held till 2006. It was during this tenure that Mukherjee had inked the 10-year Indo-US Defence Framework deal.

Mukherjee began his career as an upper-division clerk in the office of the Deputy Accountant General (Posts and Telegraph) in Calcutta. In 1963, he began teaching political science at the Vidyanagar College in South 24 Parganas and he also worked as a journalist with the Desher Dak (Call of Motherland) before entering politics.

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 byelections in Midnapore. The then Prime Minister and Congress leader Indira Gandhi recognised his talent and made him a part of the Congress Party and there has been no looking back. Mukherjee first became a Rajya Sabha member in July 1969 and was re-elected in 1975, 1981, 1993 and 1999. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004 and 2009 from Jangipura in West Bengal.