New Delhi: President Ram Nath Kovind paid tribute to his predecessor Pranab Mukherjee on his birth anniversary on Friday. The former president breathed his last on August 31, 2020, at the Army’s Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi, after suffering from multiple ailments for 21 days.
Several other politicians, including Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and some of the Union Ministers, also remembered the former president and paid tribute on his birth anniversary.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla took to his Twitter handle to pay his tribute to the former president. “I pay my tribute to former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee who was honored with Bharat Ratna on his birthday. Pranab Mukherjee’s life will always be an inspiration for all of us for the work he had done for the country…”, he wrote on Twitter. (roughly translated from Hindi)
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted, “Remembering former President of India ‘Bharat Ratna’ Shri #PranabMukherjee Ji on his birth anniversary. He was a true Statesman and has worked enormously for the nation’s development”.
The former president was born at Mirati in Birbhum district of West Bengal to Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee and Rajlakshmi on December 11, 1935. His father Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee was a freedom fighter who was imprisoned several times during the independence movement and later became a Congress leader. Pranab Mukherjee was the 13th president of India. He was conferred the Bharat Ratna in 2019, which is the highest civilian award in India.