Before leaving to tender his resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mukherjee said, " I stand ready to embark on a new journey".
In his last message as Finance Minister to the media, he said, he felt honoured and humbled on his nomination as a candidate to contest in the Presidential election by UPA-II, supported by SP, BSP , JDU Shiv Sena, CPI-M , Forward Bloc and some other parties.
"Yet, standing on the brink of such an honour, I will also feel a pinch of sentiments at the thought of leaving behind my life as a political activist, spanning over four decades," he told reporters covering him regularly in his North Block office.
He said, while not every decision of his might have been right, "but I have taken those decisions keeping in view the interest of the people". MORE