NEW DELHI: In her last address to the last parliamentary session of Parliament ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, President Droupadi Murmu said this is her first speech in the new Parliament building. The President said that the country is passing through legendary achievements called the Ayodhya Ram temple and the removal of Article 370 as significant in the country’s efforts to overcome past challenges.

“There come junctures in the history of civilizations which shape the future for the coming centuries. There have been many such defining moments in the history of India too. This year, on January 22, the country witnessed a similar epochal moment. After waiting for centuries, Ram Lalla has now been enshrined in his grand temple in Ayodhya,” the President said

“Over the past 10 years, India has witnessed several such tasks being accomplished in the national interest, for which the people of the country have been waiting for decades. For centuries, there was an aspiration to construct the Ram Mandir. Today it is a reality. There were doubts regarding the removal of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir. Those are now history," she added.

“We have been hearing slogans of eradicating poverty for a long time; now for the first time we are seeing poverty being eradicated on a large scale,” she said.

Murmu also congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the passage of the women’s reservation bill.