Vice President Election Result: 5 Key Takeaways From CP Radhakrishnan's Big Win Over Sudershan Reddy

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Vice President Election Result: Maharashtra Governor and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) nominee CP Radhakrishnan was elected the 15th Vice President of India on Tuesday.

Radhakrishnan bagged 452 votes against the Opposition INDIA bloc nominee and former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy 's 300 votes, amid indications of cross-voting in favour of the victorious candidate.

Also Read | How many votes did CP Radhakrishnan and B Sudershan Reddy get exactly?

Rajya Sabha Secretary General and Returning Officer PC Mody said 767 MPs out of 781 cast their votes with a total turnout of 98.2 per cent. Mody said 752 ballots were valid and 15 were invalid, bringing down the required majority of first preference votes to 377.

"I declare CP Radhakrishnan elected to the post of Vice President of India, and the results will be communicated to the Election Commission ," Mody said.

Surpassed BJP's Expectations

The victory of Radhakrishnan, 67, a seasoned politician from Tamil Nadu with RSS roots since childhood and decades-long stint first in the Jana Sangh and then the BJP, was a foregone conclusion due to the ruling alliance's numerical edge in the House.

The BJP-led NDA had 427 MPs on paper, plus the support of the YSRCP's 11 MPs. Some MPs representing smaller parties also backed him. This made Radhakrishnan's victory a foregone conclusion, way above the halfway mark of 377.

Also Read | 'Though result not...': B Sudershan Reddy after losing VP race to CP Radhakrishnan

But the final tally surpassed the expectations of the BJP, which hoped for around 440 votes for Radhakrishnan.

'Setback' for the INDIA bloc?

The extent of his victory margin for the NDA candidate came as a setback to the Opposition INDIA, which had claimed all its 315 MPs remained united in the election and voted for Reddy.

Soon after the voting ended at 5 PM on Tuesday, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X that The Opposition stood united.“All of its 315 MPs have turned up for voting. This is an unprecedented 100 per cent turnout.”

Reddy, however, got only 300 votes.

BJP leaders were quick to claim that Radhakrishnan drew support even from the rival camp members.

Ramesh said the Opposition's performance in the Vice Presidential election was "respectable," noting that its joint candidate Justice B Sudershan Reddy (retd) secured 40 per cent of the vote.

While Radhakrishnan received 60 per cent of the total valid votes polled, his predecessor Jagdeep Dhankhar won by a huge margin in the 2022 election, securing 74.36 per cent of the total valid votes polled. Dhankhar bagged 528 votes out of the total 710 valid votes polled.

Also Read | Meet CP Radhakrishnan, the 15th Vice President of India

"The election of the Vice President is conducted in a free and fair manner, voting takes place with secrecy, and many opposition MPs have also voted for CP Radhakrishnan, which shows that the MPs have voted by listening to the voice of their conscience," Rijiju told reporters.

Soft-spoken, non-confrontational RSS hand

Experts had said that Radhakrishnan's candidacy was primarily driven by his ideological anchoring when the BJP-led NDA picked him for the contest.

Strongly rooted in the RSS and the BJP , Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan, the two-time former MP from Coimbatore, brings along a rich political and administrative experience that will prove handy in his role as the ex officio chairperson of the Rajya Sabha.

Radhakrishnan has been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), since the age of 16.

He became a state Executive Committee Member of the Bharatiya Janasangh in 1974. Jana Sangh was founded in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mukherjee, before it became the BJP in 1980.

The BJP had picked Dhankhar, perhaps due to his Jat credentials, a community it had angered with its controversial farm laws. Dhankhar , however, proved not a very good choice and quit unceremoniously two years before his term would have ended, though citing health reasons.

Dhankhar was known for his frequent run-ins with the Opposition and had even faced an impeachment notice from them.

Radhakrishnan's nomination is also seen as a 'course correction' within the BJP. Radhakrishnan is seen as a soft-spoken and non-confrontational leader with strong RSS roots.

Cross-Voting Fears?

The BJP-led NDA had on paper 427 MPs in its alliance, with the YSR Congress also extending the support of its 11 MPs to its candidate. Some MPs representing smaller parties also backed Radhakrishnan.

Some BJP leaders suggested that at least 15 opposition MPs voted in favour of Radhakrishnan. The ruling alliance also hinted that some opposition MPs deliberately cast invalid votes.

BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswa claimed that "nearly 40 opposition MPs" listened to the voice of their conscience and voted in "some manner" in support of the NDA candidate, showing wider acceptance for him. His assertion of support from 40 opposition MPs appeared to include the 15 invalid votes.

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday claimed that many Opposition MPs had voted in favour of the NDA vice-presidential candidate CP Radhakrishnan.

Cross-voting in favour of the NDA candidate, if it happened at all, is contrary to the Opposition's expectations that some MPs might switch loyalty to the INDIA bloc's nominee, especially after the ruling alliance's 'fallout' with former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar.

Project Tamil Nadu

Radhakrishnan is the third leader from Tamil Nadu to occupy the coveted post.

Tamil Nadu is one of the aspirational states in the South. A vice president from the state sends positive signals ahead of next year's Tamil Nadu assembly elections 2026 .

“Radhakrishnan, who has been associated with the RSS from an early age, is a clever choice, because the state he belongs to, Tamil Nadu, goes to the polls next year. Though the BJP on its own has a limited vote share in a state that fiercely resists its Hindi-Hindutva ideological push, the party hopes to do better in an alliance with the AIADMK,” political analyst K Nageshwar wrote recently.

Radhakrishnan comes from the OBC Gounder caste, believed to politically rally behind the AIADMK , the BJP's biggest ally in Tamil Nadu. E Palaniswami, the AIADMK chief and the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, belongs to the same community.

Radhakrishnan was elected from Coimbatore, an industrial city in Tamil Nadu, in 1998 and 1999, with the support of the AIADMK and DMK.

The OBC Metaphor

“With the OBC becoming a powerful 'metaphor' of politics in the country and vigorously courted both by the BJP and the Congress, leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi has been emphasising the need for a caste census – the BJP has made a telling point yet again,” political analyst and author Neerja Chowdhury wrote in her Indian Express column.

Chowdhury points out that the top three offices in the country are now occupied by an Adivasi woman (President) and two men from the OBC community, one from the South (Vice President) and the other from the West with a pan-India appeal (Prime Minister).

Also Read | Tamil Nadu CM Stalin arrives in Germany to secure industrial investments

The move also reinforces the alliance with AIADMK by recognising the political influence of the Gounder community

The election of the Vice President is conducted in a free and fair manner, and many opposition MPs have also voted for CP Radhakrishnan, which shows that the MPs have voted by listening to the voice of their conscience.

Former BJP president in Tamil Nadu, K Annamalai , also hails from the Gounder background. This shared caste identity has significant electoral weight, and Radhakrishnan's elevation is seen as a move to consolidate the Gounder vote base.

(With agency inputs)

MENAFN09092025007365015876ID1110040369