Vice President CP Radhakrishnan was formally sworn into office by President Droupadi Murmu on Friday at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
CP Radhakrishnan assumed charge as the 15th Vice President of India, taking the oath in English in the name of God while dressed in a red kurta. The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, along with several senior Cabinet members and Opposition leaders. For Dhankhar, this marked his first public appearance since resigning from the post.
On September 9, Radhakrishnan, the NDA nominee, was elected as the Vice President, defeating Opposition candidate and former Supreme Court judge B. Sudershan Reddy. He secured 452 votes, while Reddy received 300 votes. The election was held after Jagdeep Dhankhar stepped down from the position on July
Radhakrishnan’s Political Journey
Radhakrishnan’s political rise began in 1998, when he won the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat as a BJP candidate, a victory that was repeated in 1999. He won with impressive margins—over 1.5 lakh votes in 1998 and 55,000 votes in 1999—at a time when the BJP’s popularity in Tamil Nadu surged in the aftermath of the Coimbatore bombings.
He later served as the President of BJP Tamil Nadu (2004–2007), during which he launched a 93-day rath yatra to highlight issues like interlinking of rivers, eradicating untouchability, and countering terrorism. He also played a key role in reviving NDA alliances in Tamil Nadu after the DMK broke ties with the BJP in 2004.