Indian Tribal News Service
New Delhi
The BJP-led NDA on Tuesday announced former Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu as its Presidential candidate. If elected, she will be the first tribal and second woman President of India.
The Indian Tribal had on May 24 reported (A Tribal For President? BJP Mulls Options For The Apex Post) about her likely candidature for the apex constitutional post given the BJP’s focus on the Scheduled Tribes. She will take on Opposition-backed former BJP leader and Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, whose candidature was announced earlier in the day.
Murmu hails from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district. She was a teacher before entering Odisha politics. She started her political career as a councilor and also became the Vice-Chairperson of Rairangpur National Advisory Council in due course before going on to become an MLA twice on a BJP ticket from Rairangpur in Mayurbhanj in 2000 and 2009.
Born on June 20, 1958, Murmu was the first woman Governor of Jharkhand from 2015 to 2021. Murmu’s candidature was the strongest among all the other tribal leaders in the reckoning for the top post.
The decision was taken in the meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Board and an announcement in this regard was made by party president JP Nadda.
Following the announcement , Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “Smt. Droupadi Murmu Ji has devoted her life to serving society and empowering the poor, 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.”
Murmu, who could be the first tribal President of India, could be the second ever woman to assume the apex constitutional post after Pratibha Patil.
Many reasons were being cited to back the tribal Presidential candidate theory: The Government’s focus on the STs, of late. The BJP’s bid to reverse the decline in its ST seat share in legislative assemblies in the polls scheduled this year and next year. And improving its ST seats share in 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Of the 47 ST Lok Sabha seats, the BJP increased its tally from 27 seats in 2014 to 31 seats in 2019, but its share of ST seats in States has been gradually declining. Gujarat, the home State of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, goes to polls later this year. In the 182-seat Assembly, 27 seats are reserved for STs. Despite the BJP ruling the State for the last six terms, its tally of ST seats has gone down over the years. It had bagged the highest 13 ST seats in 2007 but it came down to just 9 in 2017, when the Congress gave it a run for its money.
“The Prime Minister announcing the observance of the birth anniversary of tribal icon Birsa Munda on November 15 as Jan Jaatiya Gaurav Diwas every year (he had also held a mega tribal rally on the occasion), setting up of tribal freedom fighter museums in different States, renaming railway stations after tribal freedom fighters and putting up their statues are some of the key pro-tribal moves made by the Government recently which indicated at its likely shot at a tribal candidate for the Presidential polls,” sources said.
The BJP-led NDA is just short of the required numbers for ensuring Murmu’s win. If the fence-sitters BJD and YSR Congress go with Murmu, she would win easily even if BJP’s ally JD (U) goes with the Opposition. And then given the political turmoil happening in Maharashtra, the BJP’s numbers are only likely to swell further.
