Pranab the President

• Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, 76, was declared elected the 13th President on Sunday.
• The UPA nominee defeated the former Lok Sabha Speaker, P.A. Sangma, by 3,97,776 value votes. While Mr. Mukherjee polled 3,095 votes, (value 7,13,763) Mr. Sangma got 1,483 votes (3,15,987).
• Only the former President, K.R. Narayanan, secured the maximum value votes of 9, 56, 290 (94.97 per cent), when he won in the 1997 election against the former Chief Election Commissioner, T.N. Seshan.
• In the 2007 election, the outgoing President, Pratibha Patil, the first woman to hold the office, defeated the then Vice-President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, securing 65.82 per cent of the total valid votes. Shekhawat polled 33.18 per cent.
• Humbly accepting the victory, Mr. Mukherjee, the first Bengali to occupy the Raisina Hill, expressed his “deep gratitude [to the people] for electing me President.” He received much more than he had given (to the country), and he would try to justify the people’s trust in him, he said.
• Mr. Mukherjee is the third person to go directly to Rashtrapati Bhavan from the Union Cabinet, after Dr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and Giani Zail Singh.