Who Is Droupadi Murmu? Tribal Leader And Ex-Jharkhand Governor Elected 15th President Of India

There were two contesting candidates -- Draupadi Murmu and Yashwant Sinha for the 15th Presidential election.

Droupadi Murmu ( Image Source :PTI )

Presidential Election Result 2022: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA's pick Droupadi Murmu was Thursday elected as the 15th President of India. She defeated the joint Opposition candidate, Yashwant Sinha. MPs and MLAs across the nation had cast their votes in favour of either of the two candidates on Monday (July 18). The counting of votes took place at Parliament House on July 21, and the new President will take oath on July 25.

Even before the election, President-elect Murmu appeared to be ahead of Yashwant Sinha. By the time voting was over, there were signs that Murmu would defeat Sinha. 

The Election for the office of President is one of the most important elections, which the Election Commission conducts vide the mandate of Article 324 of the Constitution. Polling to elect incumbent President Droupadi Murmu was held between 10 am and 5 pm on Monday at 31 locations.

Here's all you need to know about Droupadi Murmu:

Who Is Droupadi Murmu?

Droupadi Murmu, a tribal leader from Odisha, is a former governor of Jharkhand. She was the first candidate to be nominated for the post of President of India who belongs to a scheduled tribe. She was formally nominated for the 2022 presidential election by the BJP-led NDA. She is the first person of tribal origin and only the second woman after Pratibha Patil to serve as the President of India.

Droupadi Murmu — Santhal Leader To President 

Droupadi Murmu was born on June 20, 1958, in a Santhal tribal family in the Uparbeda village of Kusumi tehsil in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. Her father was the village head under the Panchayati-Raj system. She is the only one of her three siblings to have earned a college degree, which she has often attributed to the motivation she got from her maternal grandmother.

She had started out as a primary schoolteacher. After getting a job in the irrigation division of the government, she quickly rose to the position of junior assistant. 

In her personal life, however, Murmu has seen several ups and downs. She lost her son Lakshman in 2009. The 25-year-old was found dead, according to reports. His death completely broke her, close friends and family members have been quoted as saying. Just when Murmu had started to come to terms with the death of her son, another tragedy struck. Her younger son Shipun died in a road accident in 2012. 

Unable to cope with the grief, her husband Shyam Charan Murmu died a year later. She has a daughter, Itishree, who works in a bank and is married to rugby player Ganesh Hembram.

Draupadi Murmu's Political Career

Murmu was elected to the Rairangpur municipality in 1997, and became the chairperson shortly after that. She held the position of Scheduled Tribe Morcha national vice-president for the BJP. She won the Rairangpur constituency twice to become an MLA in 2000 and 2009, as a member of the BJP.

She has previously served as a minister in Odisha after winning election from the Mayurbhanj district of Rairangpur. The Odisha Legislative Assembly presented her with the Nilkantha Award for the Best MLA in 2007.

Murmu was the ninth governor of Jharkhand. The first ST person to hold the position, she remained on the post from 2015 to 2021, becoming the first to serve a full five-year term. She was also the first tribal leader and woman from Odisha to be chosen as a governor.

Other Works By Droupadi Murmu

Murmu is known to have worked to support women's empowerment, as well as the social and educational advancement of tribal groups. In 2016, she declared that she had pledged her eyes to the Kashyap Memorial Hospital in Ranchi.

According to reports, he had converted the house of her in-laws into a trust, which donated it to a school. She named the trust SLS after the name of her husband and sons.

Presidential Election 2022

Murmu visited various states around the country as part of the campaign to seek support for her candidature. Though she was an NDA candidate, many opposition parties including the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Biju Janata Dal, Shiv Sena, Bahujan Samaj Party, Janata Dal-Secular and many others extended their support to her. Even West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress was in the forefront when the opposition selected Yashwant Sinha as its joint candidate, said she would not have considered appointing someone else had she known Murmu would be the NDA pick. 

The BJP's move to nominate a tribal woman leader for the President post is being seen as a smart one. It was seen during the voting for the presidential elections that some leaders broke their party whip to vote for Droupadi Murmu.