Droupadi takes Raisina Hills

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By Manish Anand

New Delhi, July 21: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) nominee Droupadi Murmu will be India’s 15^th President.

The BJP steered landing of Murmu on the Raisina Hills with the ease of perfection, exposing rotten sense of unity in the Opposition space, which left the challenger Yashwant Sinha embarrassed.

Murmu will be the first President of India, hailing from the tribal community. Her predecessor in the office Ram Nath Kovind hailed from the Dalit community.

Both Murmu and Kovind came to the fore as part of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s relentless striving for social engineering to broaden the party’s electoral constituency in the country.

Murmu will take the oath of the office at a time when the Maoist violence is at its low after over two decades of blood spilling in Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and some other districts in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

The scale of the Maoist violence made the erstwhile Planning Commission to come up with LEW (Left Wing Extremism) affected district plan – IAP (Integrated Action Plan).

People in the country regularly read newspapers reporting the Maoist plan of a red corridor from Nepal to Bastar in Chhattisgarh. The United Progressive Alliance government led by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh witnessed some of the terrible incidents in the Maoist hotbed.

But the internal security architecture built on the basis of the lessons learnt at heavy cost, which helped the security agencies in eliminating the top echelons of the Maoist organisations, along with the weaning away of the Nepalese leadership from the influence of China, smoked out the extremists.

In this backdrop, the election of Murmu to the top Constitutional post of India promises to mainstream the tribal communities across the country.

Thus, the political leadership richly congratulated Murmu on Thursday evening after she effortlessly sailed through following the day-long counting of the votes for the Presidential election.

“India scripts history. At a time when 1.3 billion Indians are marking ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, a daughter of India hailing from a tribal community, born in a remote part of eastern India has been elected our President,’ said Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his congratulatory message.

He also stated that “Droupadi Murmu Ji’s life, her early struggles, her rich service and her exemplary success motivates each and every Indian. She has emerged as a ray of hope for our citizens, especially the poor, marginalised and the downtrodden.”

Murmu in the Rashtrapati Bhavan is indeed the highest realization of the Indian democracy in its capacity to give representation to the aspirations of all sections of the society.

The tribal youth who failed to see hope in India and those who took arms will possibly have reasons to reflect and take part in the mainstream socio-economy of the country.

Spontaneous celebrations in the tribal states of the Northeast, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh affirm the collective rejoicing of the people in the election of Murmu to the top post of the country.

But she will not just be a tribal President, and Murmu will have to listen to all voices in the country.

The Congress communication department chief Jairam Ramesh sought to underline this aspect when he said, “… hope that she will soon hold the Modi Sarkar accountable, especially for the manner in which forest and land laws are being diluted to the detriment of tribal communities.”