As President Mukherjee's tenure comes to an end, parliamentarians across political parties agree that he has left a very high benchmark for incoming President Ram Nath Kovind to follow.
Describing that hallmark, a BJP MP said despite tenuous relationship between the President's Office and the NDA Government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had great respect for him.
"It was for no reason that PM Modi became emotional recently when he compared his relationship with President Mukherjee as between father and son. This seldom happens in a polity and the credit goes to both Pranab Da and Modiji," he said.
Mukherjee's journey to country's highest office was very eventful. After tiding through a humble beginning from Mirati village in West Bengal, he first became a college teacher and then ventured into journalism before joining politics. He entered the Parliament first time in 1969, and went on to serve five terms as Rajya Sabha member and was elected twice to the Lok Sabha.
Before being elected as the President, Mukehrjee had served as union defence minister from 2004 to 08 and as finance minister from 2009 to 2012.
CPI leader D Raja said several qualities like tremendous capacity to work, excellent knowledge, great calibre and resoluteness in dealing with tough situation make Mukherjee an outstanding politician.
"The Congress depended on him a lot to run the government. He played a huge role in shaping up country's policies and was an active President who would speak his mind," said Raja.
According to outgoing Vice President Hamid Ansari, Mukherjee was a consummate diplomat. His expertise in economic and financial matters have been much sought after.
"He was rated one of the best five finance ministers of the world in 1984 and was declared finance minister of the year for Asia in 2010. In his long career, he has been as astute administrator and consensus builder," said Ansari.
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