DC Edit | NDA’s V-P Pick Appears Acceptable

The ruling BJP may have pulled an acceptable name out of a hat in picking Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan from Tamil Nadu as the vice-presidential candidate of the NDA. The veteran politician who was twice elected as MP from western TN ticks many boxes in these particularly politically polarised times.

Coming as he does from an RSS Pracharak background, he may be the olive branch offered by the PM at a time when the ideological parent organisation has been speaking about the retirement age of 75. As the PM is fond of quoting from Tamil classics, his choice quotation Yadhum oore Yyavaram khelir (‘Every place is our native, Every one is our companion’) is seemingly apt for ‘CPR’, a moderate and accessible face from a state that is getting ready for the polls to be held next summer.

The TN ruling party DMK, diametrically opposed to the BJP, also welcomed his nomination, which it had to lest it be seen as opposing a fellow Tamil.

However, it came up with a political riposte to the strategically shrewd NDA nomination by calling for a Tamil politician to be picked as the I.N.D.I.A. bloc choice to oppose Radhakrishnan, who was named after the scholarly Vice-President Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan from the state who also went on to serve as President.

The NDA, enjoying a sufficient majority while commanding around 423 votes in an electoral college of 782 MPs (including nominated Rajya Sabha members), should get him elected against anyone the Opposition may name as it is compelled to field a Vice-Presidential candidate, ostensibly for ideological reasons but also to test the political temperature.

There is no basis for any conjecture that CPR as the NDA candidate would have any influence on the Tamil Nadu political scene in which the DMK is firmly ensconced now. But the ruling dispensation would like to send the message that Tamil Nadu is not necessarily being singled out for step motherly treatment even as the BJP hopes to enhance its support in the state.

The plus point in such a candidature is Radhakrishnan’s experience as the Centre’s representative in Raj Bhavans in Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Hyderabad and Puducherry might help him to be a capable chairman of the Rajya Sabha, which had seen a tumultuous and argumentative period with the garrulous Jagdeep Dhankhar in the chair and whose resignation has necessitated the mid-term election of a Vice-President.