Draupadi Murmu becomes 15th President of India, first tribal to hold the post

The NDA's presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu on Thursday emerged victorious in the presidential election by bagging a total of 6,76,803 votes over her rival Yashwant Sinha who polled 3,80,177 votes. Making an official announcement after the fourth round of counting, Returning Officer P C Mody declared Murmu as the winner with 64.03 percent votes. Sinha got 36 percent of the valid votes polled. Murmu bagged votes from a total of 2824 electors, including 540 MPs, while her rival Sinha got votes of 1,877 electors including 208 MPs in the election. There were a total of 4809 electors, including 776 MP with total vote value of 10,72,377, but votes of 53 electors including the maximum of 15 MPs were declared invalid in the election held on July 18. "In my capacity as Returning Officer, I declare Droupadi Murmu as President of India," said Mody while declaring the final result of counting.


Among states, Murmu got the maximum votes from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh while Sinha's tally was highest in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Sources said 17 MPs from opposition parties have cross-voted in her support. All MLAs from Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim voted in Murmu's favour, while in Arunachal Pradesh she got votes of all legislators except for four and all of all MLA except one in Nagaland. Sinha did not get a single vote from assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland and Sikkim. Murmu got maximum votes of Parliamentarians and least in Kerala where she got only one vote. Officials said the NDA candidate received two-thirds of the votes in all the earlier three rounds of counting.