Why is NDA’s VP nominee C.P. Radhakrishnan in 'purdah'? Where is he?

Where is C.P. Radhakrishnan, the NDA’s nominee for the vice-president’s post? With the election due on Tuesday, 9 September, he appears to have gone into ‘purdah’. If he has given interviews to newspapers or TV channels, it is not widely known.

Even in Tamil Nadu, the state he hails from and was the BJP president between 2004 and 2007, there has been little or no buzz about CPR. Journalists in Chennai cannot recall seeing an interview or a photograph and do not seem sure that he has even visited the state after filing his nomination.

This is in sharp contrast with the INDIA bloc’s nominee, Justice B. Sudershan Reddy, the retired Supreme Court judge. Although older than CPR, Justice Reddy has been travelling to states, meeting legislators, addressing the media and giving interviews. He has reached out to the MPs belonging to the NDA, sought a debate with the NDA nominee and has shared his opinion on several issues facing the nation. He even called on Y.S. Jagan Reddy, the former Andhra chief minister, who told him that he had already pledged his support to the NDA candidate.

He also addressed the media in Hyderabad. "My rival is not visible. He does not speak. It is not known where is he, what is he doing," he said. The former Supreme Court judge clarified that his intention is not to speak lowly about the rival, that he was rather looking for a healthy conversation with him. "Every day I am speaking to the media…a healthy conversation would have taken place if he (Radhakrishnan) had also spoken," the former Justice said.

The ‘invisibility’ of the NDA candidate even in TN, his home state, is doubly surprising because his nomination is said to be a part of BJP’s TN outreach and to woo the Gounder caste to which he belongs.

With the DMK having pledged the support of its MLAs to the INDIA Bloc’s candidate, it may have been thought to be a futile exercise. Yet, the eerie silence over the ‘son of the soil’  and ‘Tamil Pride’, the twin pitches in favour of the nomination, is strange and unexplained.

Perhaps C.P. Radhakrishnan is meeting only the NDA MPs in ‘secret’, suggested a political observer. He pointed out that with Members of Parliament of both the Houses are eligible to vote to elect the VP, the NDA may have felt it unnecessary to parade him in the states.

It is possible that the NDA is confident of its numbers, confident of winning and has taken victory for granted, he added.

Even if all that is true, it does seem strange that the vice-presidential nominee, who will be presiding over the Rajya Sabha as the chairperson, is so unusually quiet. The Rajya Sabha after all is called the ‘Council of States’ and the members are elected by state assemblies, said another. In keeping with the times, neither of them was willing to be quoted.

There is some suspense though over the election since party-whip is not applicable in the VP’s election, which means that MPs are free to vote according to their conscience and not necessarily on party lines. Justice Sudershan Reddy (Rtd) in fact has appealed to the MPs to assess the two candidates and vote for the better candidate.

The former Supreme Court judge has repeatedly said that the Vice-presidential position is not a political post but a Constitutional post, adding that if elected his foremost task would be to uphold the Constitution without fear or favour.

The ’secrecy’ possibly sits well because CPR’s claim to fame is that he joined the RSS at the age of 15, or so said the BJP national president J.P. Nadda. He twice represented Coimbatore in the Lok Sabha, winning in 1999 with support from the DMK and was the president of the state BJP between 2004 and 2007. Since February, 2023 he has officiated as the Governor of Jharkhand and Maharashtra.

Another claim to fame is that within the first four months of his tenure as the Jharkhand governor, he visited all the 24 districts of the state. Presumably he did not repeat the feat in Maharashtra or else the BJP would have cited it. Why he did in Jharkhand and did not in Maharashtra is of course not known.   

CPR’s third claim to fame is the 19,000 km 'Ratha Yatra' he undertook as TN BJP president that lasted for 93 days. The Yatra was organised to highlight his demands for linking of all Indian rivers, eradicating terrorism, implementing a uniform civil code, removing untouchability and combating the menace of narcotic drugs. He of course favours the mandatory teaching of Hindi in schools and the ‘One nation-one election’ goal of the BJP.

The NDA candidate, said to be affable and non-confrontationist, has been unusually quiet because he may well be undergoing training by the Rajya Sabha secretariat, suggested one of the two political observers this correspondent spoke to.

It is unlikely because he could well undergo such training after getting elected in the months before the winter session of parliament. Meanwhile, like his predecessor Jagdeep Dhankhar, C.P. Radhakrishnan too is out of the public eye.