Hopes and aspirations are running high among tea-tribe community and several backward groups in Assam as they look up to Droupadi Murmu for fulfilment of their constitutional rights and socio-economic empowerment. People belonging to the tea-tribe community, comprising Mundas, Oraons, Santhals, Bhumij and others, are optimistic that Murmu will take steps to ensure granting of the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to them.

They are descendants of labourers who were brought from Chotanagpur plateau areas by the British to work in tea gardens, but they have not been granted the ST status as their brethren in the states of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Adivasi National Convention Committee secretary Bir Singh Munda said Murmu, as the constitutional head, has the power to ensure that the long-pending demand of the Adivasis in Assam for the ST status is fulfilled.