Chennai: With the BJP announced Maharashtra Governor C P Radhakrishnan as its Vice President candidate, after 38 years, a Tamil Nadu native may likely occupy the second highest Constitutional post in India. Between 1984 and 1987, R Venkataraman, hailing from Tamil Nadu, was the Vice President. He had resigned mid-term to contest and succeed Zail Singh as President of India.
Radhakrishnan, who was born in Tiruppur in western Tamil Nadu on October 20, 1957, was a RSS Swamysevak, who went on to join the Janasangh and later the BJP. He was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1998 from Coimbatore, against the backdrop of the serial bomb blasts that had occurred in the industrial city when BJP leader L K Advani had come for an election campaign.
The BJP, a negligible player in electoral politics in Tamil Nadu, had contested the election in alliance with Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK. The following year, he was elected to the Lok Sabha for a second time from the same seat, this time in alliance with Karunanidhi’s DMK. His subsequent attempts to win in elections proved futile.
Radhakrishnan had headed the Tamil Nadu BJP between 2004 and 2007. In 2016, he was appointed Chairman of the Coir Board, Kochi.
In February 2023, he was appointed Governor of Jharkhand and also briefly held additional charge as Governor of Telangana and Puducherry, before being shifted to Maharashtra in July last year.
