GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 25th July. Droupadi Murmu took the oath of office as India’s 15th President on Monday. In the Central Hall of Parliament, Chief Justice of India NV Ramana administered the President’s oath of office to her.
The 64-year-old defeated opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha to become the first tribal president and the second woman in history.
In a ceremonial procession, outgoing President Ram Nath Kovind and Murmu arrived in parliament ahead of the oath ceremony.
Murmu was escorted to the Central Hall by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha M Venkaiah Naidu, and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Members of the Council of Ministers, Governors, Chief Ministers, heads of diplomatic missions, Members of Parliament, and senior civil and military officers of the government were also in attendance at the ceremony.
Murmu went to the Mahatma Gandhi memorial at Rajghat before the oath ceremony to pay her respects to the Father of the Nation.
She then met the outgoing President Ram Nath Kovind and First Lady Savita Kovind.
Following the oath ceremony, the President will depart for Rashtrapati Bhavan, where she will be greeted by an inter-services guard of honour in the forecourt and courtesies will be extended to outgoing President Kovind.
A 21-gun salute will follow the oath ceremony.
Following the completion of the vote counting, Droupadi Murmu, the NDA’s presidential candidate, was officially declared the country’s 15th President on July 22.
Murmu received 2,824 votes with a total value of $6,76,803, while Sinha received 1,877 votes with a total value of $3,80,177. In the polling on July 18, a total of 4,809 MPs and MLAs voted.
PC Mody, Secretary General of the Rajya Sabha and Returning Officer for the Presidential Election 2022, presented the certificate to Droupadi Murmu at her residence in Delhi.
Messages of congratulations poured in from across the political spectrum on Murmu’s victory.
The President of India is the country’s head of state. He/she is considered the country’s first citizen, acting on the advice of the Council of Ministers.
The primary duty of the President of India, according to Article 60 of the Indian Constitution, is to uphold, defend, and preserve the Indian constitution and the law.
The elected representatives of the parliament and state legislatures in India elect the President of India. The electoral college elects the President of India, and its members are proportionately represented.
The President of India serves a five-year term, and no law can be implemented in India without the President’s signature.
Murmu was born on June 30, 1958, in Uparbeda village, Mayurbhanj district, Odisha, into a Santali tribal family. She received her education in Bhubaneswar and then worked as a junior assistant in the State Irrigation and Power Department from 1979 to 1983.
After a brief stint as a clerk, she went on to teach at the Sri Aurobindo Integral Education Centre in Rairangpur until 1997. Murmu began her political career in 1997 when she joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
She was elected as a councillor of the Rairangpur Nagar Panchayat before becoming chairperson of the same panchayat in 2000. She later served as the BJP Scheduled Tribe Morcha’s national vice president.
Murmu joined the Odisha government’s cabinet as a member of the BJP-Biju Janata Dal coalition, first as minister of state with independent charge for commerce and transportation from March 2000 to August 2022, and then as minister for fisheries and animal resource development from August 2002 to May 2004.
She was a Rairangpur assembly constituency legislator between 2000 and 2004, and she was awarded the Nilkanth Award for the best MLA by the Odisha assembly in 2007.
Murmu became Jharkhand’s first female governor in 2015. She was also the first woman tribal leader from Odisha to be appointed as a state governor.
According to previous reports, Murmu was also considered for the top position in 2017. When the BJP leadership announced her candidacy this time, she acknowledged it.
However, she experienced several lows in her life during her political journey. Shyam Charan Murmu, her husband, died in 2014. She also lost both of her sons in the span of 4 years.
Murmu dedicated her life to serving society by empowering the poor, oppressed, and marginalised. She has extensive administrative experience as well as a distinguished gubernatorial tenure in Jharkhand.
Murmu has carved out a unique identity in public life by raising awareness about education in tribal society and serving the public as a public representative for a long time.
On July 24, outgoing President Ram Nath Kovind hosted a dinner at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi for President-elect Droupadi Murmu, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the Union Council of Ministers.
On July 25, 2017, President Kovind was sworn in as India’s 14th President for a five-year term.
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