Mnangagwa Mourns Former Indian President Pranab Mukherjee
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has mourned former Indian President and politician Pranab Mukherjee.
A journalist turned politician, Mukherjee was India’s president from 2012 to 2017 and wore many hats during a career that spanned political generations.
He rose to high office alongside one of India’s longest-serving prime ministers, Indira Gandhi.
Mukherjee died on Monday at a hospital in New Delhi aged 84.
His death was announced on Twitter by his son Abhijit Mukherjee.
Mnangagwa said he was saddened to learn of the death of Mukherjee. He wrote:
I was saddened to learn of the death of former Indian President, Pranab Mukherjee. I send the condolences of the people of Zimbabwe to our friends in India as they mourn their former president.
Before undergoing brain surgery in recent weeks, Mr. Mukherjee announced on Twitter that he had also tested positive for the coronavirus.
He was later put on a ventilator and slipped into a coma, according to doctors who were treating him at a military hospital.
Though Mr. Mukherjee never became prime minister, the top post in India’s government, his ability to build consensus on contentious issues earned him the title of the indispensable man of India’s coalition-era politics.
He played a major role in the government of Mrs. Gandhi and the political career of her daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi.
In 2012, Sonia Gandhi, the head of the Indian National Congress party, cleared the way for Mr. Mukherjee to become president, a largely ceremonial job while passing him over for the chance to be prime minister.
Born on December 11, 1935, in the small village of Mirati in India’s West Bengal state, Mukherjee was a college teacher and a journalist, and his father, Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee, was a Congress leader himself.
His mother, who went by the single name Rajlakshmi, was also involved in politics.
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