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The BJP on Tuesday named Draupadi Murmu, a tribal leader of the party from Odisha, as its candidate for the July 18 presidential election. The decision on the name was taken at the party’s parliamentary board meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, BJP president J P Nadda and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, besides Modi, were part of the deliberations at the party headquarters.
Murmu (64), a former Jharkhand governor, will be the first tribal woman to occupy the top constitutional post if she is elected, a strong possibility as numbers are stacked in the favour of the BJP-led NDA.
Shah, Singh and Nadda met Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu earlier in the day, sparking buzz that he may be considered for the top constitutional position.
Earlier today, the Opposition announced former Union minister Yashwant Sinha as its joint candidate for the top Constitutional post. The veteran politician, who has ”stepped aside” from the Trinamool Congress and was earlier with the BJP, will file his nomination papers on June 27.
Sinha’s name came up after Pawar, Gopalkrishna Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah declined the opposition offer to be their joint candidate for the top post. Their names were proposed during the meetings of opposition parties on the issue.
As the tenure of President Ram Nath Kovind comes to an end on July 24, 2022, an election to fill the position of the 16th President of India will be held on July 18. The polls will witness 4,809 electors, including MPs and MLAs, voting to elect President Kovind’s successor.
In the last election in 2017, Ram Nath Kovind became the President after defeating joint opposition candidate Meira Kumar. Kovind polled 7,02,000 votes compared with Kumar’s 3,67,000, out of a total of 10,69,358 votes.
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