She is the country’s first tribal leader.
The 64-year-old former teacher and BJP candidate hail from the state of Odisha (Orissa), where he previously served as a state governor.
Ms Murmu is the first tribal leader to hold the top position in the nation.
In India, the president is the head of state but has no executive authority.
He or she is chosen by the members of the governing bodies of the states and union territories that are governed by the federal government as well as both houses of parliament.
Yashwant Sinha, the seasoned politician running for the opposition, was defeated handily by Ms Murmu.
After a thorough debate of 20 names that the BJP and its partners had considered, Ms Murmu was selected as the presidential candidate.
She claimed that the news of her nomination had “surprised” and “delighted” her when she saw it on television.
After learning of her nomination, she told reporters, “As a tribal lady from a rural Mayurbhanj area, I had not thought about becoming the candidate for the highest post.
Odisha’s political leaders had praised her nomination and referred to her as a “daughter of the soil.”
She has been known to Kabi Vishnu Satpathy, a party colleague in the state, since the 1980s. He characterises her as “straightforward and simple.”
Ms Murmu came into the limelight in 2017 when it was rumoured that the BJP was considering her name for the presidential election that year. She was then serving as the governor of the state of Jharkhand.
Born in 1958 in Baidaposi village of Mayurbhanj district, Ms Murmu belongs to the Santhal community, one of India’s most prominent tribal groups.
Daughter of a village council chief, she studied at the Ramadevi Women’s College in the state capital, Bhubaneswar.
Journalist and activist Nigamananda Patnaik, who’s known her since 1980, says Ms Murmu started her education in her village school.
“When she was a child, her father took her to the nearby town of Rairangpur when a minister in the Odisha government, Kartik Majhi, was visiting. Suddenly, she ran up onto the stage, waving her school certificate, and told the minister that she wanted to study in Bhubaneswar.”
According to Ms Patnaik, the minister was so moved by the young girl’s excitement that he instructed his staff to assist her in enrolling in a government school in the state capital.
From 1979 until 1983, Ms Murmu worked as a junior assistant in the irrigation and energy department for the Odisha government, where she had started her career as a clerk.
She resigned from her position in Bhubaneswar and moved back to Rairangpur to care for her family at her mother-in-persuasion. She then started working as a teacher at the Sri Aurobindo Integral School.
But she resisted taking a paycheck. She just received her rickshaw fee from the school. She claimed that this was a public service, not a job. She said that her husband’s pay as a bank officer was sufficient to meet the demands of the family, Ms Patnaik.
When she won a seat on the Rairangpur city council in the municipal elections in 1997, her political career officially got underway. She was frequently seen standing in the sun while drains were cleaned and garbage was removed, personally supervising the town’s sanitation operations.
She won the Rairangpur seat for the BJP and was twice elected to the state assembly, in 2000 and 2009.
She served as a minister in the state’s coalition government from 2000 to 2004 under the direction of Biju Janata Dal leader Naveen Patnaik. She oversaw the fisheries and animal resources portfolios after initially being in charge of trade and transportation.
Ms Murmu served as president of the BJP’s state arm for “scheduled tribes”—tribal groups identified by the Indian constitution as being economically and socially disadvantaged. She held this position from 2006 until 2009.
In 2009, she lost her older son in strange circumstances, and her life took a devastating turn. She also lost her second kid and her spouse a few years later.
She was devastated, according to Mr Satpathy. “Every time we would meet, she would sob uncontrollably. There’s nothing left in my life anymore, she used to say “Added he.
The first female governor of the neighbouring state of Jharkhand was appointed to her in 2015 when she managed to gather herself. She served in that capacity from July 2010 to July 2021.
Ms Murmu garnered praise for keeping the governor’s office accessible to people from all backgrounds during her tenure, according to BBC Hindi’s Ravi Prakash in Ranchi, the state’s capital.
She has made headlines on multiple occasions for flouting conventions, such as when she visited the residence of the chief minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, or travelled with a delegation to meet the railway minister to push for more rail service in Mayurbhanj, where she was raised.
“Both events were regarded as breaking the rules. She, however, didn’t give a damn “Rajkishore Das, her political adviser adds.
According to Mr Das, Ms Murmu’s personality is most notable for “her serenity in both joy and sadness times and her fortitude in the face of catastrophe.”
Her amazing strength of character is evident in the way she picked herself up and carried on serving the public despite suffering numerous catastrophes in her family.
