NEW DELHI — About 5,000 Indian lawmakers on Thursday elected Draupadi Murmu, an indigenous tribal woman with humble roots, to be the country’s next president, marking a breakthrough for one of India’s marginalized minority groups.
The 64-year-old former governor of Jharkhand state was nominated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which controlled enough seats in federal and state legislatures to install its preferred nominee to the presidency. Murmu will be the first indigenous person and second woman to serve as India’s head of state, a role that holds limited powers compared to the prime minister, Narendra Modi.
But in a democracy often driven by caste, religion and regional identities, Murmu’s elevation could reverberate far beyond her largely ceremonial office, particularly among the 100 million tribal people in India who have long sat at the foot of India’s socioeconomic ladder — and who have been assiduously wooed, critics note, by a BJP that has been trying to expand its appeal beyond its traditional base of upper-caste Hindus.
On Thursday, as Murmu triumphed in a landslide, clinching votes from tribal lawmakers from opposition parties, BJP party offices in remote villages distributed portraits of their candidate and doled out sweets to tribal voters. Party leaders hailed the ascent of the former schoolteacher as a testament to an “aspirational” India under their leadership. And on Twitter, the party’s official account posted photos of its tribal supporters holding mass prayers in forest clearings for Murmu, a member of the Santhal tribe.
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