Droupadi Murmu first tribal woman elected as president of India

Droupadi Murmu has been elected this Thursday as president of India after winning the support of more than half of the Parliament, thus succeeding Ram Nath Kovind, who had been holding the post since 2017.

At 64, Murmu, has become the fifteenth president of India since its independence in 1947, and the first tribal woman at the helm of the country after obtaining 2,824 of the 4,754 votes cast, according to the spokesman of the Parliament of India, Pramod Chandra Mody, as reported by ‘Hindustan Times’.

Murmu is the successor of the current president, Ram Nath Kovind, whose mandate will end on July 24, after having defeated the opposition candidate Yashwant Singh.

She has thus become the second woman to hold the country’s highest office and the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has reported in a statement that of the 4,754 votes cast, Murmu obtained 2,824.

“A daughter of India hailing from a tribal community born in a remote part of eastern India has been elected our president,” Modri stressed, as reported by ‘The Hindu’.

Thus, he stressed: “she has become a ray of hope for our citizens, especially for the poor, marginalized and oppressed”.

Most of the inhabitants of the village of Uparbeda, in eastern India, where Murmu is from, have celebrated the election of the new president in the street singing and dancing and tribal artists have played drums and distributed sweets.