BY S VENKAT NARAYAN
Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI:Droupadi Murmu, nominee of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Friday filed her nomination papers for the July 18 Presidential election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed over the set of papers to Returning Officer P C Mody.
Ms Murmu was also accompanied by Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal, BJP President J P Nadda and several BJP Chief Ministers, including Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana), B S Bommai (Karnataka), Bhupendra Patel (Gujarat), Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam), Pushkar Singh Dhami (Uttarakhand), Pramod Sawant (Goa) and N Biren Singh (Manipur).
Besides the NDA leaders, YSR Congress Party’s V. Vijaysai Reddy (Andhra Pradesh) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Sasmit Patra (Odisha), who are not part of the alliance, were also in Parliament to back her nomination. AIADMK leaders O Paneerselvam and M Thambidurai, Janata Dal-United’s (JD-U) Rajiv Ranjan Singh also reached Parliament early.
Every set of nominations has to have 50 proposers and 50 seconders among elected representatives.Ms Murmu, if elected, will be the first tribal President and the second woman in the post. She will also be the youngest President ever, second only to Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, who was a few days older to her when he became the President.
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