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CP Radhakrishnan was declared elected as the 15th Vice President of India on Tuesday, September 9. He secured 452 votes in the electoral college. His rival, INDIA bloc nominee B Sudershan Reddy, received 300 votes. CP Radhakrishnan’s elevation marks the first time a leader from Coimbatore has assumed the Vice-presidential office.
Polling began at 10 am, with MPs casting their votes through a secret ballot system. Voting for the vice-presidential election is conducted by an electoral college comprising all members of both Houses of Parliament. The college has a sanctioned strength of 788 members, 245 from the Rajya Sabha and 543 from the Lok Sabha, including the 12 nominated members of the Rajya Sabha who are also eligible to vote.
For this election, the effective strength of the electoral college stood at 781, owing to six vacancies in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha. On paper, the NDA, excluding the YSR Congress Party, commanded the support of 427 MPs for Radhakrishnan, while 315 Opposition MPs were aligned with Sudershan Reddy.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) had stated that they would abstain from voting in a blow to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), while the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) said it would boycott the polls. The BJD, SAD, and BRS together hold 12 seats across both Houses of Parliament.
The BJP’s decision to nominate CP Radhakrishnan as its vice-presidential candidate went beyond filling the vacancy left by Jagdeep Dhankhar’s resignation. It was seen as a calculated move aimed at brightening the party's prospects in Tamil Nadu, where it has long struggled to establish itself. By elevating a veteran leader from Coimbatore to one of the highest Constitutional posts, the BJP is hoping to send a strong signal ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.
Radhakrishnan, born in Tiruppur in 1957, rose through the ranks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh before serving as BJP’s Tamil Nadu president. Twice elected as Lok Sabha MP from Coimbatore, he later chaired the Coir Board and held key organisational responsibilities, including the party’s national in-charge for Kerala. Since 2023, he has served as a Governor, first in Jharkhand and then in Maharashtra.
Following his nomination as a VP candidate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had hailed him as a leader who combines “dedication, humility and intellect.”
Radhakrishnan belongs to the Kongu Vellalar Gounder community, a powerful OBC group in western Tamil Nadu. The Kongu belt has traditionally favoured the AIADMK and remained challenging terrain for the BJP. Even in 2021, amid strong anti-incumbency, the AIADMK secured 26 out of 38 seats. By elevating a leader rooted in this region, the BJP aims to chip away at AIADMK’s dominance and present itself as a credible force in the state.
In the 2022 vice-presidential poll, Jagdeep Dhankhar defeated Margaret Alva by a margin of 528 votes, garnering the highest electoral vote count for a VP candidate in over three decades.