NDA candidate C.P. Radhakrishnan elected 15th Vice-President of India

Newdelhi:9/9/25:The ruling BJP-led NDA’s candidate CP Radhakrishnan’s election on Tuesday as the Vice President of India does not come as a surprise. Numbers were already stacked up for him. But it sends out key signals that go far beyond New Delhi and the now. Radhakrishnan’s win underscores a renewed southward foray of the BJP in choosing a Tamil Nadu leader for the post, as the state goes to polls next year. Plus, the party has chosen lifelong loyalty in RSS veteran Radhakrishnan, which means a clean break from someone like Jagdeep Dhankhar, who had a winding political career.

There are other reasons, too — he is from a caste among the Other Backward Classes (OBC), for instance.

But first, how the contest panned out:

• The Opposition INDIA bloc put up a combined candidate in former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy, who, being a Telugu, is also from the South. They sought to pitch it as a battle of ideologies, terming the BJP “anti-Constitution”. He got 300 against Radhakrishnan’s 452, of the counted ballots.
• The BJP-led NDA always had the numbers, so the elevation of the Maharashtra governor to the position of VP and Rajya Sabha chairperson was less a heated election and more a symbolic contest. The post of vice-president is largely ceremonial, though it includes active duties as chairperson of the Upper House of Parliament.

Radhakrishnan, now in his later 60s, was in his teenage when he started out in the BJP’s ideological parent body, the RSS. He was born in Tiruppur and has a bachelor’s degree in business administration.