Drupadi Murmu was elected President of India after winning the support of more than half of the Parliament. She succeeds Ram Nath Kovind, who has been in office since 2017. At 64, Murmu became the fifteenth president of India since independence in 1947 and is the first female tribal leader to have won 2,824 of the 4,754 votes cast, he said Indian Speaker of Parliament. Chandra Mody as reported by ‘Hindustan Times’.
“An Indian daughter from a tribal community who was born in a remote part of East India has been elected our President,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told The Hindu. For this reason, he stressed, “it has become a beacon of hope for our citizens, especially for the poor, marginalized and oppressed”. Most of the villagers of Uparbeda in eastern India, where Murmu is originally from, celebrated the election of the new president by singing and dancing in the streets, drumming tribal performers and handing out sweets.