Kochi: The 64-year-old BJP-led NDA candidate Draupadi Murmu will become the country’s 15th President after the incumbent President Ramnath Kovind’s term ends on July 24.
In the Presidential election, she won more than 50 per cent of votes needed to establish victory against opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
The President-elect will become the first tribal leader to occupy the top constitutional post when she assumes office on July25. She is the first person from Odisha to become President.
Murmu was much ahead of her rival Opposition candidate Yashwanth Sinha from the beginning.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik congratulated by visiting her personally.
Murmu began her political life in 1997 when she joined the BJP. She contested local bodies election and became a councilor of Rairangpur Nagar panchayat.
Later, she became Rairangpur panchayat chairperson in 2000. She was also National Vice President of the BJP Scheduled Tribes Morcha. She was a minister in Odisha twice.
Murmu served as the Governor of Jharkhand from 2015 to 2021.
She began her career as a school teacher and also worked as assistant professor at the Srii Aurobindo Integral Education and Research Institute, Rairangpur and as a junior assistant in the Irrigation Department in Odisha.
