Vice-President C.P. Radhakrishnan: a sportsman who doesn’t play political games

At the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) Parliamentary Party meeting in August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced Vice-Presidential nominee C.P. Radhakrishnan as someone who has keen interest in sports but “does not play games in politics”.

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It was a telling remark that reflected Mr. Radhakrishnan’s image within his party of an affable organisation man who had steered the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through the ideologically challenging terrain in Tamil Nadu. Untainted by corruption and having remained above petty organisational politics, Mr. Radhakrishnan is seen as someone who can steer the Rajya Sabha with a similar reach across both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Radhakrishnan, who was elected Vice-President of India on Tuesday (September 9, 2025), ticked all the boxes for the NDA in its search for a replacement for former Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, who resigned in July, triggering a mid-term vacancy.

Mr. Radhakrishnan was born in Tiruppur in 1957 and holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the V.O. Chidambaram College in Thoothukudi. He joined the RSS as a teenager and rose through the ranks in the organisation and the BJP. He was elected twice to the Lok Sabha (1998, 1999) from Coimbatore and was the BJP’s Tamil Nadu chief from 2004 to 2007. During his tenure as the president of the Tamil Nadu BJP, he undertook two rath yatras and a march over issues of river interlinking, imposition of a common civil code and the eradication of untouchability. Locally, he was known as the “Vajpayee of Coimbatore”, a reference to the similarity in personality of the late Prime Minister, who also had friends across party lines.

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While Tamil Nadu has not been a State where the BJP enjoys much support, Mr. Radhakrishnan’s two tenures in the Lok Sabha established that there were areas where the party could make headway. He was appointed Governor of Jharkhand in 2023 and was later given additional charge of Telangana and Puducherry till July 2024. He was subsequently appointed Governor of Maharashtra in July 2024.

Having held constitutional posts in the past, Mr Radhakrishnan, it is hoped, will avoid some of the schisms that Mr. Dhankhar’s tenure brought to light, including the first-ever impeachment motion against a Vice-President sponsored by the Opposition. Government managers say he may be more successful in the sportsmanship required of a presiding officer.