Droupadi Murmu, also known as Puti Biranchi Tudu, was born on June 20, 1958 in India and has been the country’s 15th president since July 25, 2022. She is the second woman to hold the position after Pratibha Patil and the first member of a tribal community to do so.
She is the first President born in Independent India and the youngest person to hold the position. She held a number of positions in the cabinet of the Government of Odisha between 2000 and 2004 before being elected president.
She was the ninth governor of Jharkhand from 2015 to 2021. She was a teacher at Rairangpur from 1983 to 1989 after serving as a clerk in the State Irrigation and Power Department from 1979 to 1983.
Personal life
On June 20, 1958, in the village of Uparbeda in Rairangpur, Odisha’s Baidaposi district, Droupadi Murmu was born to a Santali family. Her father was a farmer named Biranchi Narayan Tudu. Traditional village council leaders (known as Sarpanchs) in her family were her father and grandfather (Gram Panchayat).
Her parents gave her the name Puti Tudu. She was given the new name Droupadi by her teacher in school; in the past, she had also gone by Durpadi and Dorpdi.
At the nearby primary school in Uparbeda, Murmu pursued her studies in elementary education. She relocated to Bhubaneswar for further education at the age of five. Rama Devi Women’s College awarded her a B.A. after she completed her secondary education at Girl’s High School Unit-2.
In 1980, she wed financier Shyam Charan Murmu, with whom she had two sons and a daughter. Between 2009 and 2015, she lost her husband, two sons, mother, and one brother. She subscribes to the Brahma Kumaris school of thought.
Early career
Murmu served as a junior assistant in the irrigation division of the Government of Odisha from 1979 to 1983. She then served as a teacher at the Rairangpur, India-based Sri Aurobindo Integral Education and Research Center from 1994 to 1997. She was a Hindi, Odia, Math, and Geography instructor there. She never asked the school for her full wage.
Political career
As an independent candidate for a seat designated for women in the Rairangpur Nagar Panchayat in 1997, Droupadi Murmu won the election. Later, she enrolled in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
She was elected to the Odisha Legislative Assembly in 2000 from the Rairangpur Assembly constituency and served there for two years between 2000 and 2009.
She served as the Minister of State with Independent Charge for Commerce and Transportation during the BJP and BJD coalition government in Odisha from 6 March 2000 to 6 August 2002 and for Fisheries and Animal Resources Development from 6 August 2002 to 16 May 2004.
She was given the Nilkanth Award in 2007 for being the best MLA in the Odisha Legislative Assembly.She lost the 2009 election for the Lok Sabha in the Mayurbhanj constituency because the BJD and BJP’s alliance had broken down. She served as the district president until 2015 and was elected to the BJP National Executive (ST Morcha) in 2013.
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As Governor of Jharkhand
On May 18, 2015, Murmu was sworn in as the first woman to serve as governor of Jharkhand. For the majority of her six-year term as governor, the BJP was in control of both the Jharkhand government and the Union government. In 2019, she nominated Hemant Soren to lead Jharkhand as chief minister.
Former BJP politician and activist Ratan Tirkey claimed that Murmu had not gone far enough to ensure that the rights to self-governance provided to indigenous tribes were effectively carried out.
The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996, also known as PESA, and the Fifth Schedule both confer these privileges. According to Tirkey, “the then governor never employed her powers to execute the Fifth Schedule provisions and Pesa in letter and spirit despite several demands.” May 2015 marked the start of her six-year term as governor, which ended in July 2021.
Presidential campaign
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) chose Murmu as its candidate for president of India in June 2022, one month before elections. The opposition parties chose Yashwant Sinha as their presidential candidate.
Murmu traveled to many states during her election campaign to solicit support for her candidacy. Before the election, a number of opposition parties, including the BJD, YSRCP, JMM, BSP, SS, and JD(S), declared their support for her candidacy. With 676,803 electoral votes (64.03% of the total) in 21 of the 28 states (including the union territory of Puducherry), Murmu easily defeated Yashwant Sinha in the 2022 Presidential election to become the 15th President of India on July 21.
She was chosen to lead India as president, taking office on July 25, 2022. She was sworn in by Chief Justice N. V. Ramana in the Central Hall of Parliament.
Presidency
She is the first president to come from one of India’s recognized tribal clans. She was the first person elected president who was both the youngest who was born after India gained independence in 1947. Only Pratibha Patil and Murmu have held the office of President of India.
Speaking in August 2022, just before the 75th Independence Day
On the eve of India’s Independence Day, August 14, 2022, Murmu delivered his first speech to the country as president. On the 75th anniversary of the country’s independence, she welcomed the populace.
She introduced the government effort “Pradhanmantri TB mukht Bharat” in September 2022, which aims to eradicate tuberculosis from the nation.
She inaugurated the 10-day Mysuru Dasara state festival in Karnataka, making history as the country’s first female president. Murmu made numerous trips to the north-eastern parts of the nation during the first few months, visiting Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Sikkim. He also participated in ceremonies for numerous development projects.
After taking office as president, she made her maiden trip home to Odisha in November 2022 to take part in the launch of several programs. She spent time with schoolchildren on the side of the road and afterwards visited her alma mater before walking two kilometers to Puri Jagannath Temple to pay respects to the gods.
Political positions
She supports Hindu nationalism and the BJP party’s position on establishing Hindi the official language of India (Hindutva). She backs the BJP’s proposed 2020 Indian agriculture laws (commonly known as the farm laws).
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, is admired by Murmu. She has praised both B. R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi for their roles in drafting the Indian Constitution.