Droupadi Murmu elected 15th President of India

Amid heavy cross-voting, she received 64.03% of total valid votes polled

Former Jharkhand Governor and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Droupadi Murmu was elected the 15 th President of India, the first tribal woman to be elected to the position and the youngest as well. She was declared elected on Thursday after four rounds of counting, although she had crossed the halfway mark after the third round of counting itself, posting an unassailable lead over her rival and the Opposition’s candidate Yashwant Sinha, who conceded the election thereafter.

After four rounds of polling, Ms. Murmu received 2,824 votes of 6,76,803 value while Mr. Sinha received 1,877 votes or 3,80,177 value. She received 64.03% of total valid votes polled, much more than what was openly declared in her support and pointing to the fact there had been a lot of cross-voting in Ms. Murmu's favour from the Opposition ranks.

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"In my capacity as Returning Officer duly declare that Smt. Droupadi Murmu has been duly elected as President of India," said P.C. Mody, Secretary General of the Rajya Sabha, who was the designated Returning Officer for the polls.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first to greet Ms. Murmu at her residence in New Delhi after the third round of counting showed that she had crossed the half-way mark. “India scripts history. At a time when 1.3 billion Indians are marking Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, a daughter of India hailing from a tribal community born in a remote part of eastern India has been elected our President!” tweeted Mr. Modi, adding that “Smt Droupadi Murmu’s life, her early struggles, her rich service and her exemplary success motivates each and every Indian. She has emerged as a ray of hope for our citizens especially the poor, marginalised and the downtrodden.”

Ms. Murmu, who had been a former Governor of Jharkhand, hails from the Santhal tribe and was born in the district of Mayurbhanj, coming up the hard way in life, graduating and teaching in Odisha before entering electoral politics at the local body level and later being elected MLA and serving as a Minister in the Biju Janata Dal-BJP coalition government from 2000 to 2004. She remained an MLA till 2009, representing Rairangpur in Odisha, a town that burst into celebrations since her name was announced as a candidate for the post of President of India. She holds the record of being the only Governor of Jharkhand till date to complete a full tenure, and was known to intervene in stopping amendments to the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act that was being brought in by the BJP government of Raghubar Das, which involved changing land use in tribal areas.

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