NEW DELHI: Strongly rooted in the RSS and the BJP, Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan was on Tuesday elected as the 15th Vice President of India, the third leader from Tamil Nadu to occupy the coveted post.
Seen as a soft-spoken and non-confrontational leader, the 67-year-old Radhakrishnan succeeds Jagdeep Dhankhar, who resigned as vice president on July 21, taking everyone by surprise.
Described as a ‘Pachai Tamizhan’ (true-blue Tamil) by well-wishers, Radhakrishnan was serving as the Governor of Maharashtra when he was named as the vice presidential nominee of the BJP-led NDA.
A two-term member of the Lok Sabha from Coimbatore during the tenure of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Radhakrishnan came close to becoming a Union minister, but had to lose out to fellow Tamilan Pon Radhakrishnan in 1998 after some confusion over his name by the then floor managers of the BJP.
Radhakrishnan joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a teenager and rose through the ranks in the organisation and later in the BJP, gaining acceptability in the party and the state.
A member of the socially dominant and economically prosperous Kongu Vellalar Gounder community, he became the secretary of the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit in 1996 and served as the party’s state unit president between 2003 and 2006.
Radhakrishnan brings along a rich political and administrative experience, which will prove handy in his role as the vice president, who is also the ex officio chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
An avid sportsperson, Radhakrishnan was a college champion in table tennis and a long-distance runner. He also enjoys cricket and volleyball.
Radhakrishnan is considered an untainted leader with rich political and administrative experience for the vice president’s office and this would also prove useful as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
“Thiru CP Radhakrishnan Ji has rich experience as MP and Governor of various states. His Parliamentary interventions were always incisive. During his gubernatorial tenures, he focused on addressing challenges faced by common citizens. These experiences ensured that he has vast knowledge of legislative and Constitutional matters. I am confident he will be an inspiring Vice President,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said after the NDA chose Radhakrishnan as the vice presidential candidate.
The Tamil Nadu leader is said to be held in high esteem across party lines in his state, resulting in the BJP giving him multiple gubernatorial assignments in Jharkhand, Telangana, Maharashtra and Puducherry.
Radhakrishnan’s candidature also seeks to disarm the Opposition of a key political narrative, as he is the first OBC leader from South India to be named for the vice-president’s office.
An official profile circulated by the NDA projects Radhakrishnan as a leader who is eminent, knowledgeable and untainted by any legal accusations.
Born on October 20, 1957, at Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu, Radhakrishnan has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
Starting as an RSS swayamsevak at the age of 16, he became a state executive committee member of the Bharatiya Janasangh in 1974.
Between 2004 and 2007, Radhakrishnan served as the Tamil Nadu BJP president. In this role, he undertook a 19,000-km ‘Rath Yatra’ that lasted for 93 days.
The Yatra was organised to highlight his demands for the linking of all Indian rivers, eradicating terrorism, implementing a uniform civil code, removing untouchability and combating the menace of narcotic drugs, some of the key planks of the BJP and the RSS.
