Former President and veteran Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee was laid to rest with full military honours on Tuesday with his last rites performed at the Lodhi crematorium in Delhi by his son Abhijit Mukherjee. Family members were in PPE kits in view of the Covid -19 outbreak.
Earlier during the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Ram Nath Kovind, former PM Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were among the scores of leaders who paid their last respects to Mukherjee at his residence. The former president passed away on Monday at the age of 84. He had earlier tested positive for Covid -19 and had undergone an emergency life-saving surgery for a brain clot. His health continued to remain critical after the surgery and he was put on ventilatory support.
Among other leaders and officials who paid their last respects to Mukherjee at his residence, 10 Rajaji Marg, were Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, and the three service chiefs General MM Naravane, RKS Bhadauria and Admiral Karambir Singh.
‘Left a void’
"Pranab Mukherjee has left a void. He was generous and kind, who used to make me forget that I am talking to the president of India. It was in his nature to make everyone his own, despite political differences. He'll be remembered always," RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was quoted as saying. Home Minister Amit Shah said, "It's a sad day for all of us that Pranab Da isn't there with us anymore. Those who want to come in politics and learn how to work without any controversy, should observe his political life and follow him."
As a mark of respect, the government on Monday evening also announced that seven days’ state mourning will be observed throughout India from 31 August to 6 September. During this period of state mourning, the National Flag will fly at half-mast on all buildings throughout India, where it is flown regularly and there will be no official entertainment, the government announced.
Pranab Mukherjee's political career spanned five decades, during which he served as the thirteenth president of India from 2012-2017 and as the Union finance minister from 2009 to 2012. Probably no Indian politician can match Mukherjee’s enviable record as a long-distance runner. He had a ringside view of Indian politics for some five decades, though in his four-part memoir, he hid more secrets than he revealed of his eventful life.
He was the Congress party’s Man for All Seasons, whose services were often required for crisis management because of his intimate knowledge of both government and the party. Mukherjee’s career started as a junior minister in the Indira Gandhi government in the 1970s and ended when he demitted office as President of India in 2017.
In the decades in between, he held almost every important ministerial portfolio at some point. A five-time member of Rajya Sabha and twice of Lok Sabha, Mukherjee was the unchallenged authority on parliamentary procedure and laws. But the one post which eluded him was that of Prime Minister, a position he believed was his due. But twice his ambitions were thwarted, just when he assumed the post was within grasp. In 1984 when Indira Gandhi was assassinated, Mukherjee felt that as the most senior minister and by far the most qualified, he was the obvious candidate to take her place. He did not comprehend that Rajiv Gandhi, then a political novice who was not even a minister, would be his party’s natural choice. In 2004, after the UPA victory when Sonia Gandhi declined to be Prime Minister, Mukherjee again assumed that he was the obvious candidate. Instead, Sonia selected Manmohan Singh, a man who had once worked under Mukherjee as RBI Governor when he was Finance Minister.
