Draupadi Murmu
64-year-old Draupadi Murmu started her political career as a councilor, and later became the Vice-Chairperson of Rairangpur National Advisory Council. She was also the first woman Governor of Jharkhand. She was also a minister in the Naveen Patnaik cabinet when the BJD ruled the state with the BJP support.
If she wins the polls this time, Murmu will become India's first tribal president and the country's second woman president.
Yashwant Sinha
Yashwant Sinha, former IAS officer, joined active politics in 1984. He was appointed All-India General Secretary of Janata Party in 1986 and was elected a Member of the Rajya Sabha in 1988.
He worked as finance minister from November 1990 to June 1991 in Chandra Shekhar's Cabinet. He was also a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from 1992 to 2018. He last served as the external affairs minister, from July 2002 to May 2004, in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
Sinha's name was fielded by opposition parties including Congress, NCP, TMC, CPI, CPI-M, Samajwadi Party, National Conference, AIMIM, RJD and AIUDF.
On the opposition’s list were three veteran parliamentarians – Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar, former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah, and former Governor of West Bengal Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Who is likely to win the presidential election?
As per numbers, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) backed Draupadi Murmu is likely to win the elections comfortably.
From the start, political pundits opined that Murmu has a higher chance of being elected against Yashwant Sinha considering she is a woman and comes from a humble tribal background.
Murmu's selection by BJP as the presidential candidate is in line with NDA's thought process which picked Ramnath Kovind as its President face in 2017. Kovind hails from a small Koli community of Uttar Pradesh and became India's second Dalit President.
