New Delhi: NDA Presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind on Friday filed his nomination for the July 17 election here.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and Chief Ministers of the NDA-ruled states were also present. He submitted the papers at the Parliament house accompanied by the leaders of political parties backing him.
A group of Opposition parties had yesterday announced that former Speaker Meira Kumar, also a Dalit leader, would be their joint candidate against Kovind.
The term of President Pranab Mukherjee ends on July 24. While the election is scheduled for July 12, the counting of votes will take place on July 20.
If elected, Kovind will be the second Dalit to occupy the highest constitutional office AFTER k r Narayanan, who was in the Rashtrapati Bhavan during 1997-2002.
A low profile Dalit leader who held various organisational positions in the BJP, Kovind, 71, was made the Bihar Governor in 2015 after the NDA came to power in May 2014.
The name of the two-term Rajya Sabha member did not figure among the probables but his nomination by the BJP is now being seen as a ‘political masterstroke’.