India on Thursday chose Draupadi Murmu as the 15th President; she will succeed incumbent Ram Nath Kovind. Ruling NDA’s Draupadi Murmu and Opposition’s Yashwant Sinha were pitted against each other in the contest, with voters clearly stacked in favour of Murmu. She will be the first tribal woman to occupy the top constitutional post in the country. Kovind’s tenure is ending on July 24 and the new President will take oath on July 25. PM Narendra Modi is hosting a farewell dinner for outgoing President Ram Nath Kovind tomorrow from 5.30 pm onwards at Hotel Ashoka in Delhi.
“Nation has created history, the daughter of a tribal family coming from a very ordinary house in Odisha, is elected as the President,” said Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
“Not only tribals, but everyone in the country is going to have a sense of pride in having the 1st woman tribal President. I have learnt that all prominent tribal leaders will be coming to Delhi to greet the new likely to be President” said Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Draupadi Murmu
On the other hand, the Congress president has to spend all her day in the ED office. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) recorded her statement for two hours in the National Herald money laundering case and ended the session for the day on her request as she is recovering from Covid, officials said. Upon reaching the ED’s headquarters at around 12.10 p.m., Sonia was interrogated by a team of additional directors Monika Sharma. During her interrogation, she was accompanied by her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. A few minutes later, Rahul left the ED’s headquarters while Priyanka stayed back in her mother’s medicine box. Sources say that she was asked the same set of questions which were asked to Rahul during his five-day questioning.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Uma Bharti took to Twitter to warn Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi to stop Congress supporters from protesting over her summons by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the National Herald case, or else she said people will not forget that Sonia is of Italian origin and that she does not respect the Indian Constitution and laws.
Senior Congress leaders including P Chidambaram, Ajay Maken, Manickam Tagore, KC Venugopal, Adhir Ranjan Chaudhry, Shashi Tharoor, Sachin Pilot, and Harish Rawat. Ashok Gehlot, K Suresh and others were detained. As many as 75 Congress MPs including the leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and several workers were detained by the Delhi Police for holding demonstrations against the questioning of the party president Sonia Gandhi by the ED in the National Herald case.
NDA was celebrating Murmu’s win, whereas congress was on the roads protesting against ED summons to Sonia Gandhi.
