List of presidents of India

The President of India is the head of state 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 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 14 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 fourteen, three acting presidents have also been in office for short periods of time. Varahagiri Venkata 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. The 12th president, Pratibha Patil, is the first woman to hold the office, elected in 2007.

On 25 July 2017, Ram Nath Kovind took office as the 14th president of India.

Presidents of India

This list is numbered based on presidents elected after winning an Indian presidential election. The terms of Varahagiri Venkata Giri, Mohammad Hidayatullah, and Basappa Danappa 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 colours used in the table indicate the following:

Acting President (3)

President was an Independent candidate (5)

President was a candidate of Indian National Congress (INC) (7)

President was a candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (1)

President was a candidate of the Janata Party (JP) (1)

Key

-Died in office
-Resigned

No.	Name (birth–death)	Term of officeElectoral mandates Time in office		Previous post	Vice president	Party
1	Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963)	26 January 1950	12 May 1962	President of the Constituent Assembly	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	Indian National Congress
		1950, 1952, 1957
		12 years, 107 days
		Prasad, a lawyer from Bihar, was the first president of independent India and also the longest-serving president, as the only president to serve two or more terms in office. He was also a freedom fighter during the Indian independence movement.
2	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975)	13 May 1962	12 May 1967	Vice President	Zakir Husain	Independent
		1962
		5 years, 0 days
		Radhakrishnan was a prominent philosopher and writer and also held the position of vice-chancellor of the Andhra University and Banaras Hindu University. He received the Bharat Ratna award in 1954 before becoming the President.
3	Zakir Husain (1897–1969)	13 May 1967	3 May 1969	Vice President	V. V. Giri	Independent
		1967
		1 year, 355 days
		Husain was vice-chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University and a recipient of Padma Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna. He was the first president to die in office. He was also the shortest-serving and the first Muslim President.
Acting	Varahagiri Venkata Giri (1894–1980)	3 May 1969	20 July 1969	Vice President	–	–
		–
		78 days
		He was elected Vice President of India in 1967. Following the death of President Zakir Husain, Giri was appointed as Acting President. He resigned after a few months to take part in the presidential elections.
Acting	Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992)	20 July 1969	24 August 1969	Chief Justice of India	–	–
		–
		35 days
		Hidayatullah served as the Chief Justice of India and was also a recipient of the Order of the British Empire. He served as Acting President until the election of Giri as the President of India.
4	Varahagiri Venkata Giri (1894–1980)	24 August 1969	24 August 1974	Acting President	Gopal Swarup Pathak	Independent
		1969
		5 years, 0 days
		Giri was the first to have served as both an acting president and president of India. He was the recipient of the Bharat Ratna and had served as Labour and Employment Minister and High Commissioner to Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
5	Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905–1977)	24 August 1974	11 February 1977	Food and Agriculture Minister	Gopal Swarup Pathak (1974) B. D. Jatti (1974–77)	Indian National Congress
		1974
		2 years, 171 days
		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 die in office. He was also president during Emergency.
Acting	Basappa Danappa Jatti (1912–2002)	11 February 1977	24 July 1977	Vice President	–	–
		–
		164 days
		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 served as the Chief Minister of Mysore.
6	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913–1996)	25 July 1977	24 July 1982	Speaker of the Lok Sabha	B. D. Jatti (1977–79) Mohammad Hidayatullah (1979–82)	Janata Party
		1977
		5 years, 0 days
		Reddy was the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. Reddy was the only Member of Parliament from the Janata Party to get elected from Andhra Pradesh. 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 (1916–1994)	25 July 1982	24 July 1987	Home Minister	Mohammad Hidayatullah (1982–84) Ramaswamy Venkataraman (1984–87)	Indian National Congress
		1982
		5 years, 0 days
		In March 1972, Singh assumed the position of Chief Minister of Punjab, and in 1980, he became Union Home Minister. He was also secretary general to Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) from 1983 to 1986
8	Ramaswamy Venkataraman (1910–2009)	25 July 1987	24 July 1992	Vice President	Shankar Dayal Sharma	Indian National Congress
		1987
		5 years, 0 days
		In 1942, Venkataraman was jailed by the British for his involvement in the Indian independence movement. After his release, he was elected to independent India’s Constituent Assembly 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.
9	Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999)	25 July 1992	24 July 1997	Vice President	K. R. Narayanan	Indian National Congress
		1992
		5 years, 0 days
		Sharma was Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, and the Indian Minister for Communications. He also served as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra.
10	Kocheril Raman Narayanan (1921–2005)	25 July 1997	24 July 2002	Vice President	Krishan Kant	Independent
		1997
		5 years, 0 days
		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. He was also the vice-chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was the first Dalit President.
11	Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (1931–2015)	25 July 2002	24 July 2007	Chief Scientific Advisor to thePrime Minister	Krishan Kant (2002) Bhairon Singh Shekhawat (2002–07)	Independent
		2002
		5 years, 0 days
		Kalam was an educator and engineer who played a leading role in the development of India’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs. He also received the Bharat Ratna. He was popularly known as “People’s President”.
12	Pratibha Devisingh Patil (1934–)	25 July 2007	24 July 2012	Governor of Rajasthan	Mohammad Hamid Ansari	Indian National Congress
		2007
		5 years, 0 days
		Patil was the first woman to become the President of India. She was also the first female governor of Rajasthan.
13	Pranab Kumar Mukherjee (1935–2020)	25 July 2012	24 July 2017	Finance Minister	Mohammad Hamid Ansari	Indian National Congress
		2012
		5 years, 0 days
		Mukherjee held various posts in the cabinet ministry for the Government of India such as Finance Minister, Foreign Minister, Defence Minister and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.
14	Ram Nath Kovind (1945–)	25 July 2017	Incumbent (Term ends on 25 July 2022)	Governor of Bihar	Mohammad Hamid Ansari (2017) Venkaiah Naidu (2017–Incumbent)	Bharatiya Janata Party
		2017
		3 years, 266 days
		Kovind was governor of Bihar from 2015 to 2017 and a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2006. He is the second Dalit president (after K. R. Narayanan) and is the first president from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and is an active member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since his youth.