Opinion The new Vice President should let himself be guided by nothing but the Constitution

The election of the 15th Vice President of India, the second highest constitutional post in the country, took place under a lingering shadow. Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan comes to the office even as speculation is yet to die down about the unusual and unceremonious exit of his predecessor Jagdeep Dhankhar. Midway in a term scheduled to end in 2027, almost mid-sentence on the opening day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, Dhankhar resigned, citing health reasons that were widely seen to be unpersuasive. The unmistakable impression was that his exit had to do with losing the trust of the government that had appointed him. Even after being seen to conspicuously play by the ruling establishment’s script in taking on the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, and the judiciary outside it, Dhankhar apparently was not deemed to be loyal or amenable enough eventually. V-P Radhakrishnan takes over in a difficult moment, therefore, when questions still swirl about the space for manoeuvre, and more importantly, the limits of his high constitutional office in a time of sharpening political polarisation and a take-no-prisoners political executive.

Radhakrishnan traces his political lineage to the RSS, and has had a long and varied experience in public life subsequently — as the BJP’s Tamil Nadu chief, as a two-term Lok Sabha MP from Coimbatore, as governor of Jharkhand and Maharashtra most recently. In all these roles, he has earned a reputation of being the affable consensus-builder, and for an ability to make friends across the political divides fluently. As Vice President, Radhakrishnan will need to carry with him these qualities, and particularly the learnings from his tenure in the Raj Bhawan, also an office circumscribed by the demands and constraints of constitutional propriety. In the wake of Dhankhar’s abrupt exit, it may seem that the V-P’s main challenge will be to calibrate his relationship with the government in turbulent times, keep it on even keel while not looking over his shoulder constantly. But Radhakrishnan cannot lose sight of his primary responsibility: As chairperson of Rajya Sabha, the burden of fair and impartial conduct of the proceedings of the House, in which the Opposition is given a voice and a hearing, will be on him.

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To be sure, it will be a tightrope walk. The new V-P must navigate the demands of his office under a third-term government wielding a stern loyalty test, in a time when the lines between government and opposition have hardened, and the spaces for independent and mediating institutions are shrinking. He must keep his equanimity and, more importantly, let the constitutional mandate — and only the constitutional mandate — guide him through thick and thin. Welcome, Vice President Radhakrishnan, and best wishes.