Race to Rashtrapati Bhawan: Here's a list of 14 presidents of India

Presidential elections 2022: As 4,800 MPs and MLAs elect India's 15th president, here's a look at the stalwarts who have held the post in the past.

Presidential elections 2022: The race to the Rashtrapati Bhawan, between India's first tribal presidential candidate and a former finance minister, begins Monday as National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) Droupadi Murmu and Opposition’s joint pick - Yashwant Sinha - battle it out for the post of President of India. The numbers, however, are in Murmu's favour.

Gurukul Art students greeting through painting to both presidential candidates Yeshwant Sinha and Droupadi Murmu, at Lalbuag, in Mumbai. (Bhushan Koyande)

Nearly 4,800 MPs and MLAs are set to vote for their pick for the country's top post as President Ram Nath Kovind's term comes to an end on July 24. The counting of votes for the next President will be held on Thursday and the swearing-in will take place on July 25.

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Among the 14 presidents of India since the nation became a republic in 1950, seven have belonged to a political party, of whom six were backed by the Congress. Meanwhile, seven others were Independents. Kovind, the 14th President of India, was the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-backed candidate to take the chair.

Two Presidents, Zakir Husain and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, died in the office. Rajendra Prasad, the first President, is to date the only one to have been re-elected to the position.

Pratibha Patil, the last Congress-backed candidate to hold the post, was also India's first woman president and will in all probability be followed by this year's BJP candidate Droupadi Murmu.

Presidential elections in India have mostly been fought in a straightforward manner. However, the 1969 election is said to be the most interesting one so far when Congress candidate Neelam Sanjiva Reddy lost to Independent VV Giri, who was said to be backed by Indira Gandhi. Reddy was later elected as the President unopposed without any Presidential election held in 1977.

Here's a full list of 14 presidents of India:

Name of President	Years in office	Political Party
Rajendra Prasad	1950-1962	Indian National Congress
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	1962-1967	Independent
Zakir Husain	1967-1969 (died in office)	Independent
VV Giri	1969-1974	Independent
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed	1974-1977	Indian National Congress
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy	1977-1982	Janata Party
Zail Singh	1982-1987	Indian National Congress
Ramaswamy Venkataraman	1987-1992	Indian National Congress
Shankar Dayal Sharma	1992-1997	Indian National Congress
KR Narayan	1997-2002	Indian National Congress
APJ Abdul Kalam	2002-2007	Independent
Prathiba Patil	2007-2012	Indian National Congress
Pranab Mukherjee	2012-2017	Indian National Congress
Ram Nath Kovind	2017-2022	Bharatiya Janata Party