New Delhi: Droupadi Murmu, elected India’s 15th President last week, was sworn-in by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana on Monday. Murmu, who won by a wide margin against Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha, is the first tribal leader to occupy India’s highest constitutional office.
Murmu, in fact, has many firsts to her credit with this win. She is not only the first tribal headed for the Rashtrapati Bhavan, but, at the age of 64, Murmu will also be the youngest and India’s first president to be born after Independence. She was also the first woman to have been appointed as the Jharkhand Governor in 2015.
I have been elected during an important time when the country is marking 75 years of Independence, she noted. “Reaching this office is not my personal achievement but that of all the poor people in the country,” Murmu said.
“My election is proof of the fact that in India, the poor can dream and also fulfil those dreams,” she said. It is the power of India’s democracy that a girl born in a poor tribal home could reach the topmost constitutional post, Murmu added.
In her speech, the President stressed on speeding up efforts to meet the expectations that the freedom fighters had from the citizens of independent India.
Outgoing President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Members of the Council of Ministers, Governors, Chief Ministers, heads of diplomatic missions, MPs and principal civil and military officers attended the oath ceremony.
Ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, Murmu paid floral tributes at the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi in Raj Ghat on Monday morning.
