Droupadi Murmu becomes India’s youngest, first tribal President

Droupadi Murmu scripted history on July 21 by becoming India’s first tribal President defeating Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.

• She will succeed Ram Nath Kovind to become the country’s 15th president.

• She will be the first President to be born after independence and is the youngest to occupy the top post.

• She is also the second woman (After Pratibha Patil) to become the President.

Election

• The NDA’s presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu on July 21 emerged victorious in the presidential election (held on July 18) by bagging a total of 6,76,803 votes over her rival Yashwant Sinha who polled 3,80,177 votes.

• Returning Officer P C Mody declared Murmu as the winner with 64.03 percent votes. Sinha got 36 percent of the valid votes polled.

• Murmu bagged votes from a total of 2824 electors, including 540 MPs, while her rival Sinha got votes of 1,877 electors including 208 MPs in the election.

• There were a total of 4809 electors, including 776 MP with total vote value of 10,72,377, but votes of 53 electors including the maximum of 15 MPs were declared invalid in the election held on July 18.

About Droupadi Murmu

• Hailing from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district and coming from a Santhal tribal community, Murmu started out as a teacher and then entered into Odisha politics.

• In 2015, Murmu was sworn in as the first woman Governor of Jharkhand.

• She was a councillor in the local Notified Area Council in 1997.

• In 2000, Murmu won the assembly elections from the Rairangpur constituency. She was given the charge of the Department of Transport and Commerce by the then Biju Janata Dal government that was in power in Odisha with BJP’s support.

• She served as the transport and commerce minister till 2002. In 2015, she was appointed governor of Jharkhand and stayed in the post till 2021.

Presidents of India

Name of the President	Starting Year	Closing Year	Political Party
Rajendra Prasad	1950	1962	Indian National Congress(INC)
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	1962	1967	Independent
Zakir Hussain	1967	1969	Independent
VV Giri	1969	1974	Independent
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed	1974	1977	INC
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy	1977	1982	Janata Party
Zail Singh	1982	1987	INC
Ramaswamy Venkataraman	1987	1992	INC
Shankar Dayal Sharma	1992	1997	INC
KR Narayan	1997	2002	INC
APJ Abdul Kalam	2002	2007	Independent
Prathiba Patil	2007	2012	INC
Pranab Mukherjee	2012	2017	INC
Ram Nath Kovind	2017	2022	BJP
Droupadi Murmu	2022	–	BJP

GS TIMES UPSC PRELIMS & MAINS CURRENT AFFAIRS BASED BASICS  DAILY ONLINE TEST CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS QUIZ FOR STATE CIVIL SERVICES

MORE THAN 30 QUESTIONS FORM GS TIMES UPSC 2022 PRELIMS CURRENT AFFAIRS DAILY TEST