Yashwant Sinha qualifications: From ex-IAS to BJP rebel - All about opposition’s Presidential pick

Yashwant Sinha qualifications: The polling to elect India's next President concluded on Monday with nearly 99 per cent turnout. The result will be declared on July 21 and the next President will take oath on July 15. 

As per reports, BJP-led NDA's Draupadi Murmu has an edge over Yashwant Sinha who is the joint opposition's pick for the Rashtrapati Bhavan. 

What made the joint opposition nominate Yashwant Sinha for the President's role? Let’s find out his education, qualification, and background.

Yashwant Sinha was named the joint opposition's Presidential pick after NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister declined proposals to contest the election. 

Sinha, 84, served in the previous NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He held the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of External Affairs.  

Before venturing into politics, Sinha served the nation as a bureaucrat for over a decade. Born in Patna on November 6, 1937, he completed his postgraduation in political science in 1958 and joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1960.  

Sinha resigned from the IAS in 1984 and joined active politics as a member of the Janata Dal. He was a Member of the Rajya Sabha between 1988 and 1994. It was in 1992 when Sinha joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The former IAS officer had also worked as finance minister briefly (November 1990 to June 1991) in Chandra Shekhar's Cabinet. He is widely credited for pushing through several major reform measures that put the Indian economy on a firm growth trajectory

Sinha became a member of the Lok Sabha from Hazaribagh first time in 1998. He represented the seat till 2014.
 
In 2018, he quit the BJP. He eventually joined Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) and was named national vice-president of the party.  

Some key measures, Sinha took during his tenure as finance minister were lowering real interest rates, introducing tax deduction for mortgage interest, freeing up the telecommunications sector, helping fund the National Highways Authority, and deregulating the petroleum industry.  

The joint opposition’s presidential candidate was awarded the National Order of the Legion of Honour, the highest French order of merit, both military and civil, in 2015.

The opposition's consensus presidential candidate – Yashwant Sinha has the support of several opposition parties, including the Congress, NCP, TMC, CPI, CPI-M, Samajwadi Party, National Conference, AIMIM, RJD AIUDF among others.