Puducherry Congress says Droupadi Murmu will be ‘dummy President’, BJP reacts

The controversial tweet now stands deleted. Murmu, if victorious in the July 18 polls, will be the first tribal woman and second female to be the country's President.

The BJP on Wednesday accused the Congress's Puducherry unit of insulting the country's tribal community and women, as it shared the screenshot of a now-deleted tweet, in which INC Puducherry said Droupadi Murmu, the BJP's candidate for the upcoming presidential polls, will be a ‘dummy President’.

NDA's candidate for presidential polls, Droupadi Murmu. (PTI)

"Congress has started insulting Tribal Community & Women. Official handle of Congress labels Draupadi Murmu Ji as “dummy”. 1st woman tribal leader from Odisha to serve as Jharkhand Gov,2 time MLA, someone who worked her way up being insulted!!" tweeted BJP's national spokesperson, Shehzad Poonawalla.

Clicking on the link to INC Puducherry's said post leads to the message that ‘this page doesn’t exist'.

“BJP want a dummy as President and at the same time they want to cheat SC/ST," the quote-tweet, posted at 11:37am on Wednesday, a day after Murmu's candidature was announced, read.

Murmu, 64, is from Odisha, and, if victorious in the July 18 elections, will be the first tribal woman, and the second female, after Pratibha Patil, to reach the country's highest constitutional office. A former governor of Jharkhand, the former BJP leader was the first woman to hold that post, and the first to complete a full five-year-term as the state's constitutional head.

According to news agency ANI, she will file her nomination on June 24.

She will be pitted against former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, the joint opposition's nominee. The winner will succeed the incumbent, Ram Nath Kovind, and will be the 15th President of India.