BJP president J. P. Nadda, while announcing the name of former Jharkhand governor Droupadi Murmu as the NDA’s candidate for the presidential polls, said that it was the view of the BJP’s parliamentary board that the candidate should be from the eastern part of India, a woman and from the Adivasi community, which has, till now, never had a representative to occupy the highest post in the country.
Ms. Murmu, 64, with her long career in education as a teacher, and in politics as a two term MLA and minister (between 2000-2004) in the coalition government of the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal-BJP government in the State and her record as being the first governor of Jharkhand to complete the full term (2015-2021) more than fits the bill.
Born in Mayubhanj, in Odisha, she completed her graduation from Rama Devi Women’s College in Bhubhaneswar, Odisha. After working as an assistant professor at the Shri Aurobindo Integral Education and Research and as a junior assistant at the irrigation department of the government of Odisha, she joined the BJP in 1997. If elected, Ms. Murmu will also be the first president to be born after Independence.
In the same year, she was elected councillor of Rairangpur and elected vice chairperson of the area as well. In the 2000 Assembly polls, she was elected from Rairangpur and made minister in the BJD-BJP coalition government in the State. As minister, she handled various portfolios such as transport and commerce, fisheries and animal husbandry till 2004, when she was reelected as MLA. At the same time, she remained committed to the party, and she was variously district president of the BJP unit in Mayurbhanj, and State president of the BJP Scheduled Tribe Morcha between 2006-2009. In 2015, she was declared Jharkhand governor.
The BJP has always stressed that it is far different from the upper caste, upper class party that it is perceived to be and the choice of Ms. Murmu, belonging to the Adivasi community, a particularly marginal group in India, to be its choice for the next President of India is a big move in that direction.
