New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Draupadi Murmu will face opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha for the upcoming 15th presidential election, which is scheduled to be held on 18 July. Here’s what you need to know about the two candidates:
Draupadi Murmu
Draupadi Murmu, 64, started her political career as a councilor and later became the vice-chairman of the Rairangpur National Advisory Council. She was also the first woman governor of Jharkhand. She was also a minister in the Naveen Patnaik cabinet, when the BJD ruled the state with the support of the BJP.
If she wins the election this time, Murmu will become India’s first tribal president and the country’s second woman president.
Yashwant Sinha
Former IAS officer Yashwant Sinha joined active politics in 1984. He was appointed All India General Secretary of the Janata Party in 1986 and was elected a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1988.
He served as Finance Minister in Chandrashekhar’s cabinet from November 1990 to June 1991. He was also a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from 1992 to 2018. He last served as the Minister of External Affairs in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government from July 2002 to May 2004.
Sinha’s name has been unanimously taken by opposition parties including Congress, NCP, Trinamool Congress, CPI, CPI(M), Samajwadi Party, National Conference, AIMIM, RJD and AIUDF.
The opposition list had three veteran MPs – Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah and former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Who is likely to win the presidential election?
Going by the numbers, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) backed Draupadi Murmu is likely to win the election comfortably.
From the very beginning, political pundits believed that Murmu was more likely to be picked against Yashwant Sinha, as she is a woman and comes from a tribal background.
Murmu’s selection by the BJP as its presidential candidate is in line with the NDA’s thought process, which had elected Ram Nath Kovind to the presidency in 2017. Kovind belongs to a small Koli community in Uttar Pradesh and became the second Dalit President of India.
first published:June 28, 2022, 11:37 am