BJP backs tribal politician for India's president

Indian lawmakers have begun the process of choosing the country's next president by casting their votes Monday.

They are choosing between Draupadi Murmu, nominated by the ruling alliance, and Yashwant Sinha, who is backed by the opposition parties.

Veteran tribal politician Murmu enjoys the backing of the ruling center-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Her nomination holds a lot of symbolic significance for India's tribal communities. If elected, she would also be the second-ever woman to hold the high office. The only woman to have held the post of India's president to date was Pratibha Devisingh Patil, from 2007 until 2012.

Murmu, 64, was born in the eastern state of Odisha, where she first won elections as a councilor of the state. She later joined mainstream politics and served as a lawmaker and governor of the eastern state of Jharkhand.

Even though the actual results of the voting will only be announced on July 21, Murmu is widely expected to become the country's next president with the BJP backing and the support of parties in state assemblies, experts have said.

Who is Murmu's rival, Yashwant Sinha?

A fractured opposition has nominated Yashwant Sinha, a former finance and foreign minister, as their candidate for the presidential election.

Sinha, 84, served as a minister in the first BJP-led governments by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the late 1990s and 2000s. 

He quit the BJP party in 2018, saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party had undermined the country's democratic institutions.

Sinha faces an uphill battle because the opposition has not been able to decisively anchor the support of non-BJP parties.

Several candidates nominated by the opposition even rejected nominations for the presidential post in the run-up to the presidential election.

How do presidential elections work in India?

India's president is chosen by members of both houses of the parliament, as well as members of legislative assemblies of all states and union territories.

The term of India's current president, Ram Nath Kovind, ends on July 25, which is when the new president is set to take the oath of office.

The country's constitution mandates lawmakers to fill the presidential position before the incumbent president's term is up.

India's president is a largely ceremonial position, and executive powers are wielded by the prime minister and his cabinet under India's constitution.

Still, the position is a highly prestigious one. The president can play a key role during a political crisis by deciding which party can best form a federal government when general elections are inconclusive. The president also has the power to grant death-row pardons.

rm/dj (Reuters, AP)