Pranab Resigns, PM Keeps Finance Ministry

New Delhi: Pranab Mukherjee, a union minister for decades together, Tuesday resigned from the cabinet to contest the July 19 presidential election as the candidate of the ruling United Progressive Alliance.

"Today, I stand ready to embark on a new journey. I feel honoured and humbled on my nomination as a candidate to contest the presidential election," Mukherjee told reporters outside the North Block office of his finance ministry before submitting the resignation letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Mukherjee said besides the United Progressive Alliance partners, he enjoyed support of many regional parties, including the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Janta Dal (United), Shiv Sena, the CPI-M and Forward Bloc.

An official statement from Rashtrapati Bhavan later said that President Pratibha Patil has accepted Mukherjee's resignation and the prime minister will keep the crucial finance portfolio with himself.

In an emotional farewell statement after saying good-bye to the North Block, from where he presided over the country's financial affairs since January 2009, Mukherjee said all the decisions he had taken during his career might not have been correct.

"Yet, standing on the brink of such an honour, I also feel a tinge of sentiment at the thought of leaving behind my life as a political activist, spanning over four decades," he said.

"I will miss my colleagues in the ministry of finance. And I will also miss being stopped while getting into my car and getting out of my car in front of the ministry of finance by you all," he said to media persons.

The 77-year-old Mukherjee claimed that he had taken all the decisions during his four-decade long political career keeping in mind the interests of the common people.