The 15th President of India, Droupadi Murmu, is the first indigenous person to inhabit Rashtrapati Bhavan

Droupadi Murmu, a candidate for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), overcame Yashwant Sinha, an opponent, to win the election for president of India on Thursday. After Ram Nath Kovind’s term as president expires on July 24, she will take office as India’s 15th president on July 25. With this triumph, Murmu, 64, will shortly become the second woman after Pratibha Patil to be selected to the nation’s top constitutional position and the first member of the tribal community to hold the office of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Announcing her nomination last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter and wrote, “Smt. Droupadi Murmu Ji has devoted her life to serving society and empowering the poor, the downtrodden as well as the marginalised. She has rich administrative experience and had an outstanding gubernatorial tenure. I am confident she will be a great President of our nation.”

#WATCH | Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves from the residence of NDA's Presidential candidate #DroupadiMurmu after congratulating her on being elected as the country's President. pic.twitter.com/aM6aIckOxB

— ANI (@ANI) July 21, 2022

Murmu, who is renowned for her simplicity and softness of voice, expressed her surprise at being nominated for the position of president. She was chosen from a list of 20 potential presidential candidates that NDA had in mind. During the most recent presidential elections in 2017, her name was also on the list of likely NDA candidates. Murmu may be soft-spoken, but her personal and professional lives both reflect her steely drive and strong will.

Despite going through several personal traumas, including losing both of her kids between 2009 and 2012 and her husband in 2014, Murmu raised her daughter Itishree by herself. She is now a banker who is engaged to a rugby player. Itishree claims that her mother is much like any other mother—sweet and demanding all at once.

However, contrary to what the opposition parties and Murmu’s opponent Yashwant Sinha would have you believe, she is not a “rubber-stamp.” In 2016, while serving as governor of Jharkhand, Murmu gave the Raghubar Das-led BJP administration the modified versions of two land laws. The Das administration eventually had to withdraw the bills that would have opened up tribal lands to economic usage after returning them in 2017.

Following the victory of “Odisha’s daughter,” the obscure village of Murmu in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district has come to life. The nearby Jharkhand village of Pahardpur is decked out in jubilation after hearing of Murmu’s triumph, and inhabitants are wearing traditional clothing. Murmu’s journey from the most underdeveloped region of India to the Rashtrapati Bhavan is a tale full of hardships.

She was the first individual to attend a university in Bhubaneshwar from her ancestral village of Uperbeda, which is located in the same district. In 2000, when the BJP and the BJD were allied, she had risen through the ranks to become a minister in Odisha. Before she won the Rairangpur assembly elections in 2000, she served there as a councillor. Murmu enrolled with the BJP in 1997. Murmu worked as a teacher at the Sri Aurobindo Integral Education and Research Centre in her hometown of Rairangpur from 1994 to 1997 before deciding to enter politics. She had advanced to the position of Scheduled Tribe Morcha national executive member for the party in Odisha. She has held important positions in the transport, business, fisheries, and animal husbandry ministries of the state of Odisha. The legislative assembly also gave her the renowned “Nilakantha Award for Best MLA” in 2007.

In addition, Murmu worked for the government of Odisha from 1979 to 1983 as a junior assistant in the irrigation and power division.