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The President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu, paid floral tributes to Shri V.V. Giri, former President of India, on his birth anniversary at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 10 August 2026.
Varahagiri Venkata Giri was born on 10 August 1894 at Berhampur in present-day Odisha and served as the fourth President of India from 24 August 1969 to 24 August 1974.
He is the only person to have been elected President of India as an independent candidate, in the 1969 election decided by the celebrated 'conscience vote'.
Before the presidency he was a leading figure in the trade union movement, serving as President of the All India Trade Union Congress and heading the All India Railwaymen's Federation.
He was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1975, after his term ended, and died on 24 June 1980.
The President is elected by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the States, including — after the 70th Amendment — Delhi and Puducherry
Prescribes the manner of election: proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, with voting by secret ballot, and a formula ensuring uniformity across States and parity between the Union and the States — the mechanism through which Giri won on second preferences in 1969
Qualifications for election as President: a citizen of India, at least 35 years of age, and qualified for election as a member of the Lok Sabha; the person must not hold any office of profit
Provides that the Vice-President shall act as President during a vacancy caused by death, resignation, removal or otherwise — the provision under which Giri acted as President after Zakir Husain's death in 1969
Requires an election to fill a vacancy caused by death, resignation or removal to be held as soon as possible and in any case within six months from the date of the vacancy
The conscience-vote contest crystallised the rift between Indira Gandhi and the Congress 'Syndicate', leading to the party's formal split into Congress (R) and Congress (O) later that year — a standard modern-history question
Giri's trade union career links the presidency to the history of the All India Trade Union Congress, founded in 1920, and to the railway workers' movement — a rare instance of a labour leader reaching the highest constitutional office
The premier labour research and training institute of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, located at Noida, carries his name
Giri received the Bharat Ratna in 1975; the award to a former President is comparatively rare and is a detail examiners use to test attention
GS Paper 2 > Polity > The Executive: President; GS Paper 1 > Modern Indian History
General Awareness > Polity and Indian History
General Awareness > Polity
The presidency, presidential elections and the list of Presidents are perennial questions in SSC, Railway and Prelims polity
The 1969 call to electors to vote by conscience rather than by party direction in the presidential election, which enabled V.V. Giri's victory as an independent
The system under Article 55 by which the President is elected, with electors marking preferences and second preferences counted if no candidate secures the required quota outright
The Vice-President discharging the President's functions during a vacancy under Article 65; Giri did so after Zakir Husain's death in 1969
India's oldest trade union federation, founded in 1920, of which V.V. Giri served as President