RSS, Rajya Sabha & Mission South: Why Radhakrishnan Fits Modi’s Bill for Next VP

The Jagdeep Dhankhar episode has set the yardstick for elimination of potential candidates, writes Manish Anand.

The BJP parliamentary board decision may further please the RSS top brass for paying serious attention in picking a man with long years spent in the sangh.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

The result of the Vice Presidential elections is expected to be announced today, on 9 September, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate, Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan, facing off with the Opposition's Sudershan Reddy. The decision wears the heavy shadow of the unceremonious and sudden exit of Jagdeep Dhankhar from the office of the Vice President of India last month.

The BJP faced a strict checklist in deciding the successor of Dhankhar, with the assessment that the Rajya Sabha will be a major political battleground in the coming years.

While the checklist emerged broad on parameters, it also had an overwhelming compulsion to bring a man from the sangh to hold the office of the presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha. The Dhankhar episode was the yardstick for elimination of potential candidates. 

Ticking the RSS Checklist

In a span of 48 hours Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent out messages of alignment with the BJP’s ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

First, he showered praises for the RSS from the ramparts of the Red Fort in his 12th Independence Day speech. He sent out feelers to Nagpur that he is abiding by the broad contours—organisational pedigree, commitment to core principles, and the ability to take all onboard—within the ideological family of the RSS for appointments to important positions. 

Significantly, Radhakrishnan ticks another checklist of the RSS, not stated officially but forcefully advocated, that 75 years of age should be a threshold for retirement from active roles.

The Maharashtra Governor is 68 years old, and he may retire from the Constitutional post before he turns 75 years old. 

The BJP parliamentary board decision may further please the RSS top brass for paying serious attention in picking a man with long years spent in the sangh. Radhakrishnan’s resume reads as two-term Lok Sabha MP from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, holding the position of state unit chief, while also working in the past as BJP’s party in-charge for Kerala. This should be seen as tilting of scales in favour of the RSS amid simmering tension with the BJP. The party’s bid to assert a functional autonomy during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections strained the BJP’s relations with the RSS. 

Radhakrishnan: A Modi Confidante

The Maharashtra Governor has a special bond with the Prime Minister. His supporters have described him as the “Modi of Tamil Nadu.” Modi is learnt to have respect for him as the former toiled hard in Tamil Nadu for the BJP when the party had almost zero footprint.

Tamil Nadu also happens to be a state which figures in Modi's calendar quite often, for visits. The Prime Minister is undeterred by “Go Back Modi” trends on social media whenever he visits Tamil Nadu. Often quoting the legendary Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar, Modi is seemingly running a marathon in Tamil Nadu politics to help the BJP gain acceptance where the party is branded a Hindi outfit. Incidentally, Radhakrishnan in the past had been a marathoner, while also being an advocate of learning Hindi for convenience in communication.

Radhakrishnan also checks another of Modi’s political boxes in the BJP’s OBC pivot. The Maharashtra Governor’s tendency to stay away from media headlines is equally to the Prime Minister’s liking.

Spotlight on Mission South   

The BJP government at the Centre has been facing heat over the deepening North-South divide. The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu has evidently been monetising the fear of delimitation for political gains ahead of the next year’s Assembly elections. 

The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, often viewed as a political lightweight, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, still seen as a technocrat rather than a politician, are two prominent faces from the South in the BJP-led central government.

There is, nevertheless, a visible absence of southern faces in the top ranks of the BJP. Radhakrishnan can fill that void, which persists after former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu completed his tenure. 

Radhakrishnan in the Vajpayee-Advani era was instrumental in forging an alliance of the BJP with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). The alliance has again been revived after the BJP removed K Annamalai as the Tamil Nadu chief of the party.

The BJP is hoping that film star-turned-politician Vijay of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) may emerge as a disruptor in Tamil Nadu politics and open up space for the saffron outfit on Dravidian political turf. To this effect, the BJP seeks to send out a loud political message with Radhakrishnan as the VP candidate in Tamil Nadu politics. 

The BJP’s Mission South emerged as a strategic political plank in 2016, but the party is yet to reap any worthwhile dividends. It is is now out of power from even Karnataka, where the party’s state unit is seemingly in disarray due to infighting. Kerala remains a two-front political electoral battleground. Telangana stunned the BJP by reviving the Congress. The Mission South in the last nine years thus has brought hardly any gains for the BJP.  

Finding a Presiding Officer for Rajya Sabha 

The Vice President of India, per Constitution experts, has hardly any role other than as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Dhankhar, in his role as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, apparently gained spotlight for stirring up a storm in the BJP camp by allowing some space to the Opposition in last few months. 

The BJP would hope that Radhakrishnan, as the presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha, will be firm against the Opposition. His six years of experiences as a Parliamentarian makes him well-versed with the functioning of the Parliament. Within the BJP, it’s amply clear that disruptions in Parliament will now be the norm.

The saffron outfit is observing the Opposition rallying on issues such as alleged voters’ manipulation and Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) controversy as signs of gradual building of confrontationist politics, with one eye on the crucial Assembly elections in the next two years.

In the BJP’s assessment, Parliament will turn into Opposition’s springboard for agitations-based politics. The ongoing Monsoon session of Parliament has already revealed scale of deepening discord between the treasury and the Opposition benches. Radhakrishnan seemingly promises to fulfil expectations the BJP has from the next presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha.

In Radhakrishnan, the BJP, per insiders in the party, found a match for the skill sets required for the post of the Rajya Sabha. With him possibly becoming the Vice President of India, the BJP will count on consequential political messaging gains south of the Vindhyachal. 

(This piece has been republished on account of the Vice Presidential elections. It was originally published on The Quint on 18 August, 2025.)

(The author is a senior Delhi-based journalist, with over two decades of tracking politics and parliament for several publications. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)