A woman who hails from a minority ethnic community has been chosen as India’s new president.
Droupadi Murmu, 64, is a veteran politician from the eastern state of Odisha and was governor of Jharkhand state from 2015-2021. Her father and her grandfather were village headmen in Baidaposi in the Mayurbhanj district in Odisha.
Murmu received 64 per cent of the votes against 36 percent votes of Yashwant Sinha, a former federal finance minister from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who switched sides and was pitted as a candidate by the opposition parties.
Indian Prime Minister Modi congratulated Murmu by visiting her at her residence in New Delhi, and in a tweet wrote he was “certain she will be an outstanding President who will lead from the front and strengthen India’s development journey.”
Modi tweeted that “Her record victory augurs well for our democracy”.
Murmu’s supporters and Modi’s BJP party see her win as a big achievement for tribal people and a breakthrough moment for her community, which generally lacks health care and education facilities in remote villages.