New Delhi, July 22: Droupadi Murmu, the 64-year-old tribal leader from Odisha scripted history on Thursday when she was elected India’s first Adivasi President, defeating the Opposition’s Yashwant Sinha with a lion’s share of votes.
Murmu will be the first President to be born after independence and also the youngest to occupy the top post. She is the second woman to become India’s First Citizen.
Here’s what you need to know about the country’s next president, Droupadi Murmu.
EARLY LIFE
Born on June 20, 1958 to a Santhal family in Uperbeda village in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, Murmu’s journey is an inspiring story of many firsts. She was the first girl in her village to go to college.
Before beginning her career in politics, Murmu was a teacher at the Sri Aurobindo Integral Education Centre in Rairangpur. She then went on to work as a junior assistant in the irrigation and power department of the Odisha government.
POLITICAL SUCCESS
It is from Rairangpur that she took her first step up the BJP ladder. She won an election to the Rairangpur Nagar Panchayat in 1997, and served as councillor.
She was first elected to the Odisha assembly in 2000 and went on to become a minister of state (independent charge) for commerce and industry and the fisheries and animal resources development minister in the BJD-BJP coalition government. In 2004, she won a second term in the state assembly.
