India on Monday swore in the new President Draupadi Murmu, the first ever president from the country’s indigenous ethnic groups.

“My election is proof that the poor in the country can have dreams and also fulfill them,” she said after taking her oath of office.

In India, the president mainly fulfills representative tasks, while the power lies with the prime minister.

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Murmu, who belongs to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party BJP, was the second woman to hold the office.

Indigenous people make up some 8.6 per cent of India’s population of around 1.3 billion people and are often poor and marginalized.

Murmu, a former teacher, was previously the governor of the Jharkhand region. (dpa/NAN)