CP Radhakrishnan elected India’s 15th Vice President, to take oath on Sep 12

NDA nominee and Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan has been elected as the Vice President of India with a total of 452 votes.He is set to take the oath on September 12. Radhakrishnan defeated the opposition’s B Sudershan Reddy by 152 votes and is likely to take oath as the 15th Vice President of India on September 12. Radhakrishnan polled 427 votes in the election. A total of 767 votes were polled, out of which 752 were found valid and 15 were invalid. The NDA’s nominee got 452 votes, while the INDIA bloc’s candidate got 300 votes.

“The NDA nominee and Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan got 452 first preference votes. He has been elected as the Vice President of India. Opposition's vice-presidential candidate Justice Sudershan Reddy secured 300 first preference votes,” said PC Mody, Secretary-General, Rajya Sabha, who was also the returning officer of the vice president.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated CP Radhakrishnan and said in a post on X that he has devoted his life to serving society and empowering the poor and marginalised and will be an outstanding VP.

Home Minister Amit Shah also congratulated CP Radhakrishnan on being elected as the Vice President of India. Shah said as the new vice president Radhakrishnan will help in bringing out the best in our parliamentary democracy to serve the marginalised.

How did the vice presidential election go?

The election to choose India’s next vice president, necessitated due to the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar, concluded with 98.3% voter turnout as lawmakers from both Houses of Parliament cast their votes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first to cast his vote, followed by Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, JP Nadda, Kiren Rijiju, and others. Opposition leaders, including Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also cast their votes.

As per reports, 767 MPs cast their votes in the election, but 15 were declared invalid. On paper, the NDA had the support of 427 MPs, and YSRCP’s 11 MPs also voted for Radhakrishnan, but the NDA nominee got more votes than their tally, leading to speculation of cross-voting by some opposition MPs.

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said earlier in the day that all 315 opposition MPs turned up for voting, but since INDIA bloc nominee Reddy got only 300 votes, some cross-voting seems to have taken place.

The election was held around 50 days after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned as the vice president, citing health concerns.

Who is new VP Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan

Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan, 67, a veteran BJP leader and lifelong RSS swayamsevak, will become India’s vice-president, making him the third leader born in Tamil Nadu to occupy the nation’s second-highest constitutional office as he follows in the footsteps of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1952–57) and R Venkataraman (1984–87), both of whom later rose to the presidency.

Born on October 20, 1957, in Tiruppur—the “knitwear capital of India” in Tamil Nadu’s Kongu belt—Radhakrishnan was drawn to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) early. At just 17, he joined the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, which later gave rise to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

A foot soldier of the BJP since its inception in 1980, Radhakrishnan has held many key roles in the party's Tamil Nadu unit and was the State President from 2004 to 2007.

The ruling NDA fielded former Tamil Nadu BJP president CP Radhakrishnan, an OBC leader and two-time former member of Lok Sabha from Coimbatore, while the Opposition picked Justice B. Sudershan Reddy, a former Supreme Court judge, for the race.

Polling was held in Room No. F-101, Vasudha, Parliament House, between 10 am and 5 pm, said Rajya Sabha Secretary-General PC Mody, the returning officer.

The Opposition called the contest an “ideological battle,” though the numbers comfortably favoured the NDA.

Several regional outfits like the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chose to abstain.