New Delhi: Former Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind was sworn in as the 14th President of India on Tuesday. Mr Kovind, who succeeds Pranab Mukherjee, is the first BJP leader and the second Dalit to hold the country’s highest constitutional post.
Mr Kovind, 71, in his acceptance speech said the “key to India’s success is its diversity” which makes it “unique”, and that India of the 21st century will be “one that is in conformity with our ancient values as well as compliant with the fourth industrial revolution”.
“In this land we find a mix of states and regions, religions, languages, cultures, lifestyles and much more. We are so different and yet so similar and united,” he said.
Country needs to do more, fast: Kovind
Mr Kovind recalled his journey from a “mud house” in a village to the 350-acre Rashtr-apati Bhavan, and said that it’s the basic mantra in the Constitution — justice, liberty, equality and fraternity — which “guides us to carve out pathways for those from a less fortunate background.”
“It is so telling of our nation and our society also... For all its problems, it follows that basic mantra given to us in the Preamble to the Constitution — of ensuring justice, liberty, equality and fraternity — and I will always continue to follow this basic mantra.”
Mr Kovind was sworn in by Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar at Parliament’s Central Hall. Soon after his swearing in, some BJP MPs chanted “Jai Shree Ram” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai.”
Stressing on access and opportunities for the “last person and the last girl-child from an underprivileged family,” he said, “We have achieved a lot as a nation, but the effort to do more, to do better and to do faster should be relentless. This is especially so as we approach the 75th Year of our Independence in 2022.”
Mr Kovind said the country needs to sculpt a robust, high growth economy, an educated, ethical and shared community, and an egalitarian society as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi and BJP ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay. He said the principal architect of the Constitution, B.R Ambedkar, instilled in the people “the value of human dignity and of the republican ethic.”
