Former President and veteran Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee will not enter active politics again, his daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee said on Sunday. First elected as a Rajya Sabha MP in 1969, the 81-year-old leader had a political career spanning nearly five decades. He was president from 2012 to 2017.
Sharmistha Mukherjee made the statement on Twitter in response to a suggestion by Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh would pitch Pranab Mukherjee as the prime minister if the Bharatiya Janata Party did not get a majority in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Raut’s remark came three days after Pranab Mukherjee delivered a speech at an RSS event in Nagpur. His decision to attend the event had caused consternation in his party. Some party leaders had earlier downplayed Mukherjee’s decision, while leaders such as Jairam Ramesh, Ramesh Chennithala and CK Jaffer Sharief had urged him to reconsider his decision.
After the speech, however, the Congress said Mukherjee had shown the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh the “mirror of truth” with his speech.s
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