List of Presidents of India

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The President of India is the head of state and first citizen of India. The President is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of India.^[1] Although the president is vested such powers by the constitution of India, the position is largely a ceremonial role and the executive powers are de facto exercised by the Cabinet Ministers and Prime Minister.^[2] The post of President is known in Hindi as Rashtrapati (Hindi: राष्ट्रपति), a Sanskrit neologism meaning "lord of the realm". The President is elected by an electoral college composed of members of the parliament houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and also members of the Vidhan Sabha, the state legislative assemblies.^[1]

There have been 12 Presidents of India since the introduction of the post in 1950. The post was established when India was declared as a republic with the adoption of the Indian constitution.^[3] Apart from these twelve, three acting presidents have also been in office for short periods of time. Varahagiri Venkata Giri became acting president in 1969 following the death of Zakir Hussain, who died in office. Giri was elected President a few months later. He remains the only person to have held office both as a president and acting president. The President may remain in office for a tenure of five years, as stated by article 56, part V, of the constitution of India. In the case where a president's term of office is terminated early or during the absence of the president, the vice president assumes office. By article 70 of part V, the parliament may decide how to discharge the functions of the president where this is not possible, or in any other unexpected contingency.^[1] Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, is the only person to have held office for two terms.^[4]

Seven presidents have been members of a political party before being elected. Six of these were active party members of the Indian National Congress. The Janata Party has had one member, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, who later became president. The state of Andhra Pradesh has sent three presidents to the office so far, Zakir Hussain, V V Giri and N Sanjiva Reddy, highest for any state. Two presidents, Zakir Hussain and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, have died in office. Their vice-presidents functioned as acting president until a new president was elected. Following Hussain's death, two acting presidents held office until the new president, Varahagiri Venkata Giri, was elected. Varahagiri Venkata Giri himself, Hussain's vice president, was the first acting president. When Giri resigned to take part in the presidential elections, he was superseded by Muhammad Hidayatullah as acting president.^[5] The current President is Pratibha Patil, who was elected as the 12th President of India in 2007. She is also the first woman to serve as President of India.^[6]

Contents 1 Presidents 2 Timeline 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

Presidents

This list is numbered based on Presidents elected after winning an Indian Presidential election. The terms of Varahagiri Venkata Giri, Muhammad Hidayatullah, and Basappa Danappa Jatti, who have functioned as acting presidents, are therefore not numbered. The President of India does not represent any political party, and the Political party column below indicates the party (if any) that the president was a member of before being elected. The colours used in the table indicate the following:

#	Name	Portrait	Took office	Left office	Vice President	Notes
1	Dr Rajendra Prasad		26 January 1950 (10:24 AM IST)	13 May 1962	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	Prasad was the first President of independent India.[7][8] He was also an independence activist of the Indian Independence Movement.[9] Prasad was the only president to serve for two terms in office.[4]
2	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan		13 May 1962	13 May 1967	Zakir Hussain	Radhakrishnan was a prominent philosopher, writer, a Knight of the Realm and also held the position of vice chancellor of the Andhra University and Banaras Hindu University.[10] He was also made a Knight of the Golden Army of Angels by Pope Paul VI.[11]
3	Zakir Hussain		13 May 1967	3 May 1969	Varahagiri Venkata Giri	Hussain was vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University and a recipient of Padma Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna.[12] He died before his term of office was ended.
	Varahagiri Venkata Giri *		3 May 1969	20 July 1969		Giri was appointed as acting president following the death of Hussain.[13] He resigned in a few months to take part in the presidential elections.[5]
	Muhammad Hidayatullah *		20 July 1969	24 August 1969		Hidayatullah served as the Chief Justice of India, and was a recipient of the Order of the British Empire.[14] He served as acting president until the election of Giri as the President of India.
4	Varahagiri Venkata Giri		24 August 1969	24 August 1974	Gopal Swarup Pathak	Giri is the only person to have served as both an acting president and president of India. He was a recipient of the Bharat Ratna, and has functioned as Indian Minister of Labour and High Commissioner to Ceylon (Sri Lanka).[15]
5	Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed		24 August 1974	11 February 1977	Basappa Danappa Jatti	Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed served as a Minister before being elected as president. He died in 1977 before his term of office ended, and was the second Indian president to have died during a term of office.[16]
	Basappa Danappa Jatti *		11 February 1977	25 July 1977		Jatti was the vice president of India during Ahmed's term of office, and was sworn in as acting president upon Ahmed's death. He earlier functioned as the Chief Minister for the State of Mysore.[16][17]
6	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy	File:Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy.jpg	25 July 1977	25 July 1982	Muhammad Hidayatullah	N.S.Reddy was the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh State. Reddy was the only Member of Parliament from the Janata Party to get elected from Andhra Pradesh.[18] He was unanimously elected Speaker of the Lok Sabha on 26 March 1977 and relinquished this office on 13 July 1977 to become the 6th President of India.
7	Giani Zail Singh		25 July 1982	25 July 1987	Ramaswamy Venkataraman	In March 1972, Singh assumed the position of chief Minister of Punjab, and in 1980, he became Union Home Minister.[19]
8	Ramaswamy Venkataraman	File:R Venkataraman.jpg	25 July 1987	25 July 1992	Shankar Dayal Sharma	In 1942, Venkataraman was jailed by the British for his involvement in the India's independence movement.[20] After his release, he was elected to independent India’s Provisional Parliament as a member of the Congress Party in 1950 and eventually joined the central government, where he first served as Minister of Finance and Industry and later as Minister of Defence.[21]
9	Shankar Dayal Sharma		25 July 1992	25 July 1997	Kocheril Raman Narayanan	Sharma was Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, and the Indian Minister for Communications. He has also served as the governor of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra.[22]
10	Kocheril Raman Narayanan		25 July 1997	25 July 2002	Krishan Kant	Narayanan served as India's ambassador to Thailand, Turkey, China and United States of America. He received doctorates in Science and Law and was also a chancellor in several universities.[23] He was also the vice-chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University.[24]
11	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam	File:A P J Abdul Kalam.jpg	25 July 2002	25 July 2007	Bhairon Singh Shekhawat	Kalam, was a scientist who played a leading role in the development of India's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.[25] Kalam also received the Bharat Ratna.
12	Pratibha Patil	File:PratibhaIndia.jpg	25 July 2007	Incumbent	Mohammad Hamid Ansari	Patil is the first woman to become the President of India. She was also the first female Governor of Rajasthan.[26][27]

• The symbol (*) with a light brown background indicates an acting president.

Timeline

<timeline> ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20 PlotArea = top:10 bottom:50 right:130 left:20 AlignBars = late

DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1950 till:01/01/2014 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1950

Colors =

 id:pres   value:Blue legend: Elected
 id:act   value:Green legend: Acting

Legend = columns:2 left:150 top:24 columnwidth:100

TextData =

 pos:(20,27) textcolor:black fontsize:M
 text:"Presidents:"

BarData =

 barset:PM

PlotData=

 width:5 align:left fontsize:S shift:(5,-4) anchor:till
 barset:PM

from: 26/01/1950 till: 13/05/1962 color:pres text:"Rajendra Prasad" fontsize:16
from: 13/05/1962 till: 13/05/1967 color:pres text:"Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan"  fontsize:10
from: 13/05/1967 till: 03/05/1969 color:pres text:"Zakir Hussain" fontsize:10
from: 03/05/1969 till: 20/07/1969 color:act text:"Varahagiri Venkata Giri" fontsize:10
from: 20/07/1969 till: 24/08/1969 color:act text:"Muhammad Hidayatullah" fontsize:10
from: 24/08/1969 till: 24/08/1974 color:pres text:"Varahagiri Venkata Giri" fontsize:10
from: 24/08/1974 till: 11/02/1977 color:pres text:"Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed" fontsize:10
from: 11/02/1977 till: 25/07/1977 color:act text:"Basappa Danappa Jatti" fontsize:10
from: 25/07/1977 till: 25/07/1982 color:pres text:"Neelam Sanjiva Reddy" fontsize:10
from: 25/07/1982 till: 25/07/1987 color:pres text:"Giani Zail Singh" fontsize:10
from: 25/07/1987 till: 25/07/1992 color:pres text:"Ramaswamy Venkataraman" fontsize:10
from: 25/07/1992 till: 25/07/1997 color:pres text:"Shankar Dayal Sharma" fontsize:10
from: 25/07/1997 till: 25/07/2002 color:pres text:"Kocheril Raman Narayanan" fontsize:10
from: 25/07/2002 till: 25/07/2007 color:pres text:"A. P. J. Abdul Kalam" fontsize:10
from: 25/07/2007 till: 05/01/2009 color:pres text:"Pratibha Patil" fontsize:10

</timeline>

See also

• Vice-President of India
• List of Vice-Presidents of India

References

General

Specific

External links

• Official website of the President of India
• Rediff.com - Presidents of India
• The Hindu - A presidential poll in the coalition age
• Zee News: Former Presidents

v • d • e Lists of Presidents and Vice Presidents of India Presidential lists by order Order of service · Age · Birth · Death · Number Living · Time in office Presidents' personal lives College education · Place of birth · Place of primary affiliation · Previous occupation · Religious affiliation Presidents' professional lives Political affiliation · Political occupation · Inaugurations (Addresses) · Pardons · Vacancies Vice Presidential lists Order of service · Time in office · Birth · Longevity · Vacancies Succession Line of succession

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