Droupadi Murmu No Stranger To Being 1st At Something: From A Tribal Village To Rashtrapati Bhavan
NDTV
Droupadi Murmu, BJP-led NDA candidate, is poised to win presidential polls, though results will be out on July 21
Droupadi Murmu is no stranger to being the first at something. She is set to be the first tribal President of India, but it started when she was barely out of her teens — when she left her village in Odisha for state capital Bhubaneshwar, becoming the first girl from the village to get a college degree.
Her brother, Taranisen Tudu, still lives in the village, Uperbeda in Mayurbhanj district, next to the border with Jharkhand. Nearly 80 per cent of the people are tribal here, most of them from Ms Murmu's Santhal tribe.
"The first woman from the Santhals to be India's Number One — you can imagine how happy we are," her brother told NDTV. When she was studying in Bhubaneshwar, 275 km away, her parents could afford to give her just Rs 10 as monthly allowance.
Progress in the village hasn't quite matched hers, though. It was fully electrified only recently — parts of it after she was declared the BJP-led NDA's candidate. She moved to the town of Rairangur, about 20 km away, several years ago. Family members in the village say she continues to visit.
