Chandrapuram Ponnusami Radhakrishnan was elected India’s 15th Vice-President on Tuesday, defeating B Sudershan Reddy by a margin of 152 votes. The outcome came as a jolt to the Opposition bloc, whose hopes of securing at least 320-plus votes appeared to have been dashed by cross-voting.
NDA nominee Radhakrishnan, 67, an old-time RSS and BJP leader, secured 452 of the 752 valid votes polled – with 15 declared invalid – against Reddy’s 300.
The BJP-led NDA had on paper 427 MPs, 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.
But the final tally surpassed the expectations of the BJP, which hoped for around 440 votes for Radhakrishnan.
The Congress’s confidence, on the other hand, evaporated quickly. Soon after the voting ended at 5 pm, Jairam Ramesh said: “The Opposition has stood united. All of its 315 MPs have turned up for voting. This is an unprecedented 100 per cent turnout.”
Eventually, Reddy got only 300 votes. Asked about this, a senior Opposition leader said, “Invalid votes does not mean cross-voting,” indicating that the 15 votes which were found invalid were all of Opposition MPs.
BJP leaders were quick to claim that while some Opposition MPs deliberately cast invalid votes, at least 15 others voted in favour of Radhakrishnan.
Senior BJP MP and the party’s chief whip in the Lok Sabha, Sanjay Jaiswal, quipped: “The NDA had 438 votes along with the YSRCP. But when Rahul Gandhi called for a vote according to conscience, some Opposition MPs went by his advice, and we got 452 votes.”
Jaiswal added: “The MPs from those states where Radhakrishnanji has been Governor have been impressed with his neutrality. So some of them stood by him. Others who did not want to vote for him, invalidated their votes. Some others did not want to stand with a person who has a history of supporting Naxals (the BJP has accused Reddy, a retired Supreme Court Justice, of pro-Naxal bias due to a verdict given by a Bench including him on the Salwa Judum).”
A senior BJP leader involved closely in the voting process said apart from Maharashtra and Jharkhand, where Radhakrishnan has been Governor over the past two years, Opposition MPs from Rajasthan too voted for him.
Sources said that with the goodwill for Radhakrishnan in mind, the BJP leadership had asked Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to reach out to MPs from the state to support him. While Fadnavis spoke to most of the MPs, Home Minister Amit Shah too spoke to some in the Opposition ranks.
A BJP leader hinted that the rupture had been mostly in the Congress. “Opposition parties like the DMK and Trinamool Congress stood as one bloc.”
An Opposition MP said some cross-voting was expected. “We knew that a few votes would switch, primarily because Mr Reddy was not a winning candidate. You cannot expect coherence in the Opposition alliance compared to the ruling front. But it would be interesting to see what happened,” said the MP.
The electoral college for the V-P election comprises members of the two Houses of Parliament. Together, they number 788 – 245 MPs in the Rajya Sabha and 543 in the Lok Sabha. Of these, six seats are vacant in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha. Of the 781 who comprised the electorate Tuesday, 767 cast their votes (98.2% turnout), of which 752 votes were found to be valid, Rajya Sabha Secretary General P C Mody, the Returning Officer for the election, said.
Incidentally, the same number of votes, 15, were found invalid in the 2022 vice-presidential election too, when Jagdeep Dhankhar was elected.
Fourteen MPs abstained – 7 from the BJD, 4 of the BRS, 1 of the Shiromani Akali Dal, and two Independents from Punjab. All had announced their decision to abstain from or to boycott voting. Mody said one postal ballot was received, but was treated as “returned and cancelled” as the elector declined to cast his vote.
Three MPs – Amritpal Singh, Sheikh Abdul Rashid and P V Midhun Reddy – were eligible for postal ballot, of which Reddy and Rashid voted in person. Rashid, who is in jail, like Amritpal, got court permission to cast his vote.
The office of Srinagar MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi tweeted that he had not received any communication from his party National Conference on the V-P election. “However, it was an obvious ideological choice and decision, therefore he cast his vote in favour of the candidate of the INDIA bloc,” it said. The NC has one other MP in the Lok Sabha besides Mehdi.
This was the second narrowest margin of victory in terms of votes in the V-P election. The narrowest so far has been the 2002 contest between NDA nominee Bhairon Singh Shekhawat vs Opposition candidate Sushilkumar Shinde, when Shekhawat won by 149 votes.
A two-time Lok Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore, Radhakrishnan is currently the Maharashtra Governor, having moved from the Jharkhand Raj Bhavan in July last year.
Congratulating the new V-P, President Droupadi Murmu posted on X: “Your decades of rich experience in public life will contribute significantly to the nation’s progress.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Radhakrishnan’s life “has always been devoted to serving society and empowering the poor and marginalised”. “I am confident that he will be an outstanding VP, who will strengthen our Constitutional values and enhance Parliamentary discourse.”
Home Minister Shah said: “I firmly believe that your sagacity as a leader who has risen from the grassroots of the society and your profound knowledge about administration will help us in bringing out the best in our parliamentary democracy to serve the marginalised.”
Reddy offered his congratulations and best wishes to Radhakrishnan, saying that although the result was not in his favour, the “ideological battle continues with ever greater vigour”. “I humbly accept this outcome with an abiding faith in the democratic processes of our great Republic. This journey has been a profound honour.”
Reddy also thanked the Opposition parties who had made him their joint candidate, adding: “Our democracy is strengthened not by victory alone, but by the spirit of dialogue, dissent, and participation.”
Congratulating Radhakrishnan, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said: “We hope the new Vice President-elect will uphold the highest ethos of parliamentary traditions, ensuring equal space and dignity for the Opposition, and not succumb to pressures of the ruling dispensation.”
He added that Reddy had put up a spirited and principled fight. “This was more than an election; it was a battle of ideology, reaffirming that governments with authoritarian tendencies must be checked to protect our Constitution and democracy,” he said, adding, “We must also remember why this election was necessitated. Shri Jagdeep Dhankar resigned suddenly on the very day he chaired the opening of the Monsoon Session – an exit still unexplained and unceremonious.”
On Tuesday, Dhankhar made his first public statement since his resignation on July 21, congratulating Radhakrishnan. In a letter to the new V-P, Dhankhar wrote: “Heartfelt felicitations on your election as the Vice-President of Bharat, the world’s largest democracy and home to one-sixth of humanity. Your elevation to this august office reflects the trust and confidence by the representatives of our nation.”
Dhankhar added that with Radhakrishnan’s “vast experience in public life”, the office of the V-P would achieve “greater veneration and glory”.
