# List of presidents of India

None is correct &#x2D; please see [[WP:SDNONE]]
* Top left: Rajendra Prasad was the first and longest-serving President of India.
* Top right: Zakir Husain was the first from a minority religion to become President of India.
* Bottom left: Pratibha Patil was the first female President of India.
* Bottom right: Droupadi Murmu is the youngest President and the first President from a tribal community.
The president of India is the head of state of the Republic of India and the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. The president is referred to as the first citizen of India. Although vested with these powers by the Constitution of India, the position is largely a ceremonial one and executive powers are de facto exercised by the prime minister.
The president is elected by the Electoral College composed of elected members of the parliament houses, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and also members of the Saasana Sabha or Vidhan Sabha, the state legislative assemblies. Presidents 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.
There have been 15 presidents of India since the post was established when India was declared as a republic with the adoption of the Indian constitution in 1950. Apart from these fifteen, three acting presidents have also been in office for short periods of time. V. V. Giri became the acting president in 1969 after Zakir Husain 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. Rajendra Prasad, the first president of India, is the only person to have held office for two terms.
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. Two presidents, Zakir Husain and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, have died in office. Their vice presidents served as acting presidents until a new president was elected. Following Zakir Husain's death, two acting presidents held office until the new president, V. V. Giri, was elected. When Giri resigned to take part in the presidential elections, he was succeeded by Mohammad Hidayatullah as acting president. Pratibha Patil is the first woman to hold the office, elected in 2007.
On 25 July 2022, Droupadi Murmu took office as the president of India, becoming the second woman and the first tribal person to hold the office.

## List

This list is numbered based on presidents elected after winning an Indian presidential election. The terms of V. V. Giri, Mohammad Hidayatullah and B. D. Jatti, who served as acting president are therefore not numbered or counted as actual terms in office. The president of India does not represent any political party. The colors used in the table indicate the following:
| No. | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Home state | Former Office(s) | Term of office | Term of office | Term of office | Oath administered by (CJI) | Election | Election Map | Prime Minister | Political party | Political party |
| No. | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Home state | Former Office(s) | Assumed office | Left office | Time in office | Oath administered by (CJI) | Election | Election Map | Prime Minister | Political party | Political party |
| 1 | | Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963) | Bihar | Minister of Agriculture | 13 May 1952 | 13 May 1957 | 12 years, 107 days | M. Patanjali Sastri | 1952 | | Jawaharlal Nehru | Indian National Congress | |
| 1 | | Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963) | Bihar | Minister of Agriculture | 13 May 1957 | 13 May 1962 | 12 years, 107 days | Sudhi Ranjan Das | 1957 | | Jawaharlal Nehru | Indian National Congress | |
| 2 | | Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) | Tamil Nadu | Vice President of India | 13 May 1962 | 13 May 1967 | 5 years | Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha | 1962 | | Jawaharlal Nehru (1962- 1964) Lal Bahadur Shastri (1964- 1966) Indira Gandhi (1966- 1967) | Independent | |
| 3 | | Zakir Husain (1897–1969) | Andhra Pradesh | Vice President of India Governor of Bihar | 13 May 1967 | 3 May 1969 | 1 year, 355 days | Kailas Nath Wanchoo | 1967 | | Indira Gandhi | Independent | |
| Acting | | V. V. Giri (1894–1980) | Odisha | Vice President of India | 3 May 1969 | 20 July 1969 | 78 days | | – | – | | Independent | |
| Acting | | Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) | Chhattisgarh | Chief Justice of India | 20 July 1969 | 24 August 1969 | 35 days | | – | | –Indira Gandhi | Independent | |
| 4 | | V. V. Giri (1894–1980) | Odisha | Vice President of India Governor of Kerala | 24 August 1969 | 24 August 1974 | 5 years | Mohammad Hidayatullah | 1969 | | Indira Gandhi | Independent | |
| 5 | | Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905–1977) | National Capital Territory of Delhi | Minister of Agriculture | 24 August 1974 | 11 February 1977 | 2 years, 171 days | A. N. Ray | 1974 | | Indira Gandhi | Indian National Congress | |
| Acting | | B. D. Jatti (1912–2002) | Karnataka | Chief Minister of Karnataka | 11 February 1977 | 25 July 1977 | 164 days | | – | – | | Indian National Congress | |
| 6 | | Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913–1996) | Andhra Pradesh | Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh | 25 July 1977 | 25 July 1982 | 5 years | Mirza Hameedullah Beg | 1977 | | Morarji Desai (1977- 1979) Charan Singh (1979- 1980) Indira Gandhi (1980- 1982) | Janata Party | |
| 7 | | Zail Singh (1916–1994) | Punjab | Chief Minister of Punjab | 25 July 1982 | 25 July 1987 | 5 years | Y. V. Chandrachud | 1982 | | Indira Gandhi (1982- 1984) Rajiv Gandhi (1984- 1987) | Indian National Congress | |
| 8 | | Ramaswamy Venkataraman (1910–2009) | Tamil Nadu | Vice President of India Minister of Defence | 25 July 1987 | 25 July 1992 | 5 years | Raghunandan Swarup Pathak | 1987 | | Rajiv Gandhi (1987- 1989) V. P. Singh (1989- 1990) Chandra Shekhar (1990- 1991) P. V. Narasimha Rao (1991- 1992) | Indian National Congress | |
| 9 | | Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) | Madhya Pradesh | Vice President of India Governor of Maharashtra | 25 July 1992 | 25 July 1997 | 5 years | M. H. Kania | 1992 | | P. V. Narasimha Rao (1992- 1996) Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1996) H. D. Deve Gowda (1996- 1997) Inder Kumar Gujral (1997) | Indian National Congress | |
| 10 | | K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) | Kerala | Vice President of India | 25 July 1997 | 25 July 2002 | 5 years | J. S. Verma | 1997 | | Inder Kumar Gujral (1997- 1998) Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998- 2002) | Indian National Congress | |
| 11 | | A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015) | Tamil Nadu | Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of India | 25 July 2002 | 25 July 2007 | 5 years | Bhupinder Nath Kirpal | 2002 | | Atal Bihari Vajpayee (2002- 2004) Manmohan Singh (2004- 2007) | Independent | |
| 12 | | Pratibha Patil (born 1934) | Maharashtra | Governor of Rajasthan | 25 July 2007 | 25 July 2012 | 5 years | K. G. Balakrishnan | 2007 | | Manmohan Singh (2007- 2014) Narendra Modi (2014- 2017) | Indian National Congress | |
| 13 | | Pranab Mukherjee (1935–2020) | West Bengal | Minister of Defence Minister of Finance Minister of External Affairs | 25 July 2012 | 25 July 2017 | 5 years | S. H. Kapadia | 2012 | | Manmohan Singh (2007- 2014) Narendra Modi (2014- 2017) | Indian National Congress | |
| 14 | | Ram Nath Kovind (born 1945) | Uttar Pradesh | Governor of Bihar | 25 July 2017 | 25 July 2022 | 5 years | Jagdish Singh Khehar | 2017 | | Narendra Modi | Bharatiya Janata Party | |
| 15 | | Droupadi Murmu (born 1958) | Odisha | Governor of Jharkhand | 25 July 2022 | Incumbent | 2 years, 236 days | N. V. Ramana | 2022 | | Narendra Modi | Bharatiya Janata Party | |

## Statistics

* Indian National Congress (53.33%)
* Independent (26.67%)
* Bharatiya Janata Party (13.33%)
* Janata Party (6.67%)