BJP makes its choice for Prez
The contours of the race up Raisina Hill next month became clear on Tuesday after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) named former Jharkhand governor Droupadi Murmu as its nominee for the presidential poll, and the Opposition bloc picked former Union minister Yashwant Sinha. Ms Murmu, a grassroots leader from Odisha who was a firebrand tribal activist before taking the plunge into politics and serving as a minister in the Odisha government, is the second tribal candidate of a major political formation for the highest post in the land. She is also almost certainly the next occupant of Rashtrapati Bhavan as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is within striking distance of a majority in the electoral college, comprising parliamentarians and members of assemblies whose votes are weighed in proportion to the strengths of the population they represent.
The office of the president may be titular, but it is encased in prestige. Ms Murmu’s nomination is in line with the BJP’S push to expand its base among India’s marginalised communities, and can be seen as the logical successor to the decision to nominate Ram Nath Kovind in 2017. The political messaging of naming Ms Murmu, a tribal woman leader who battled extreme poverty and deprivation to assert her rights and forge her political path, is clear – the BJP is signalling that while Opposition parties are mired in old-style politics of insider transaction, it is giving erstwhile deprived communities a seat at the high table. Her likely elevation as president is powerful symbolism and a moment of pride for India’s 100 million tribespeople, many of whom continue to battle hurdles to accessing education, employment, health care and a life of dignity.
If she wins the July 18 election – Mr Sinha, who is considered one of India’s earliest reformers who helped seed the construction boom in the 2000s and helped deregulate the petroleum and telecom sectors, has only a slim chance of victory – she will not only be in office when the results of the next general elections are announced in 2024, but will be the incumbent when two tribal-majority states – Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh – go to the polls in the next two years. By nominating Mr Kovind, the BJP had signalled to the Dalit communities that it was no longer a party of only “upper castes”, a strategy that helped consolidate its position in the heartland. In picking Ms Murmu, it has taken the next step, to help the BJP win over erstwhile hostile communities, transform the social profile of the party, and cement a new era of domination in politics.