Ram Nath Kovind

Biography

Ram Nath Kovind was born in 1945 in Paraunkh, a village in the Kanpur Dehat district of Uttar Pradesh, into a Koli family; his mother died when he was five. He earned degrees in commerce and law from DAV College, Kanpur, and after preparing for the civil services examination chose to practise law instead.

Enrolled as an advocate in Delhi in 1971, he was central government advocate in the Delhi High Court from 1977 to 1979, briefly personal assistant to Prime Minister Morarji Desai, and standing counsel for the central government in the Supreme Court from 1980 to 1993, also giving free legal aid to the poor.

Kovind joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1991, lost two bids for the Uttar Pradesh assembly, led the party's Dalit Morcha from 1998 to 2002 and served as a national spokesman. He sat in the Rajya Sabha for Uttar Pradesh from 1994 to 2006 and addressed the UN General Assembly in 2002.

Appointed Governor of Bihar in August 2015, he resigned in June 2017 on being nominated for president, and in July 2017 defeated Meira Kumar to become India's 14th president, the first BJP member in the post. After his term ended in July 2022 he chaired the government committee on simultaneous elections, which reported in March 2024.