Former Indian president Pranab Mukherjee has died due to a lung infection, weeks after he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
He tested positive for COVID-19 on August 10 and had been in hospital since. He was 84.
Born on December 11, 1935 in the village of Mirati, in the eastern state of West Bengal, Mukherjee studied history, political science and law.
He was valued for his ability to build consensus by exerting his charm to bring together disparate groups, though Mukherjee never won the seat of Indian political power — the Prime Ministership — despite decades of loyalty to India’s establishment Congress party.
In 2012, Mukherjee resigned from parliament to take the largely figurehead role of head of state.
He was sworn in as India’s 13th president, with cross-party support that underlined his wide acceptability, an attribute rare in Indian politics.
But a corruption scandal two years into his presidency led to a defeat in general elections for Congress, which ruled India for most of its independent history, and Mukherjee had to swear in Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi as prime minister.