Droupadi Murmu, who is scheduled to take the oath of office as president of India on Monday, would be the tenth president to be sworn on July 25 in a row since 1977. Ram Nath Kovind, who gave his final address to the country today and recalled his ancestral village while praising his schoolteacher, will be succeeded by Murmu.
Droupadi Murmu, the first tribal woman president of India, will be sworn in at the Central Hall of the Parliament with elaborate ceremonies. To become India’s 15th president, the president-elect will swap places with departing Kovind.
Formula of 25th July
Despite the absence of a statutory rule mandating that presidents be sworn in on this day, records going back to 1977 show that every president chosen through the customary process has done so on July 25.
‘Exceptions to this Rule’
Rajendra Prasad, India’s first president, and his successors Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain, and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed were the exceptions to this rule.
Rajendra Prasad took oath on January 26, 1950 – the day India became a Republic. In 1952, he won the first presidential poll and went on to win the second presidential election. He was succeeded by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who took over as president on May 13, 1962, and remained in that position until May 13, 1967. Following him, two presidents—Zakir Husain and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed—were unable to finish their terms because they passed away while in office, which led to midterm elections.
On July 25, 1977, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, India’s sixth president, took the oath of office.
Since then, other presidents have taken the oath on the same day, including Giani Zail Singh, R Venkataraman, Shankar Dayal Sharma, K R Narayanan, A P J Abdul Kalam, Pratibha Patil, Pranab Mukherjee, and Ram Nath Kovind.
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Very nicely explained