Momentum for the July 18 Presidential election picked up on Friday as BJP-led NDA's nominee Droupadi Murmu filed her nomination papers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed over the set of papers to Returning Officer P C Mody.
Murmu, 64, was also accompanied by Union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal. BJP president J P Nadda and several chief ministers including Yogi Adityanath, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Manohar Lal Khattar, B S Bommai, Bhupendra Patel, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Pushkar Singh Dhami, Pramod Sawant and N Biren Singh were also present..
Every set of presidential nominations has to have 50 proposers and 50 seconders among elected representatives. Besides the NDA leaders, YSR Congress' V Vijaysai Reddy and BJD leader Sasmit Patra, who are not part of the alliance, were also in Parliament to support her nomination. AIADMK leader O Paneerselvam and M Thambidurai, JD-U's Rajiv Ranjan Singh were also present on the occasion.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) , a tribal party , which until now is supporting the Joint-opposition-consensus candidate and former Minister in the Vajpayee government Yashwant Sinha, is also likely to "review" its stand and back the NDA’s ‘Santhanl ‘ leader from Odisha, sources said. NDA’s nomination of a tribal leader has put JMM in a spot.
Murmu, the former governor of Jharkhand, 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 N Sanjeeva Reddy, who was a few days older to her when he became the President.
Pratibha Patil became the first woman president of India in 2007 under the Congress-led-UPA government. Meanwhile, Murmu on Friday called up key opposition leaders, including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, NCP's Sharad Pawar and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and sought their support for her candidature. All the three leaders expressed their best wishes to her, sources said. The counting of votes will take place on July 21.
Murmu , the NDA candidate is expected to clinch the post in her contest against Sinha with ease thanks to additional support from regional parties like BJD, JDU and YSR Congress.
The president is elected by members of electoral college consisting of elected members of both houses of Parliament and elected members of the legislative assemblies of all states including national capital territory of Delhi and Union territory of Puducherry.