Two top luminaries in race for Vice President’s office
The battle lines are finally drawn. As Indian National Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge opined soon after announcing the INDIA bloc’s Vice President candidate, the contest is an ideological battle. The result is indeed a foregone conclusion. But the contestants to the post are two of the best that the present-day India could choose
Days after the NDA led by the BJP announced C.P. Radhakrishnan, the Governor of Maharashtra and former Coimbatore MP as its Vice-Presidential candidate, the INDIA bloc has pushed forward retired Supreme Court Judge B. Sudershan Reddy as its candidate.
The Vice-President election is scheduled to for September 9. The last date to file nomination is August 21. The election for Vice-President follows the resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar last month.
Let’s look at the profiles of the two distinguished personalities who would vie with each other for the VP’s chair.
CP Radhakrishnan: Politician par excellence
The NDA candidate, sixty-eight-year-old Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan, is currently the Governor of Maharashtra and has served as Coimbatore’s Member of Parliament twice. A former president of the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP, he has a degree in Business Administration. At the age of 16, he became part of the RSS, and by 1974 he was chosen as a state executive member of the Bharatiya Janasangh.
A close confidante of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, C P Radhakrishnan rose to be BJP Tamil Nadu Secretary in 1996 and successfully contested to the Lok Sabha in 1998 and again in 1999.
In July 2024, he was named the Governor of Maharashtra, and prior to this assignment, he had served as Governor of Jharkhand. He was also a part of the parliamentary team sent to the United Nations General Assembly in 2004.
Justice (retd) B Sudershan Reddy: Progressive Jurist
Meanwhile, retired justice B Sudershan Reddy is a legal luminary who served as Supreme Court judge during the 2007-2011 period. During his tenure, he had pronounced several landmark judgments, including those on criminal jurisprudence, Constitution, taxation, service law and human rights.
A progressive jurist, Justice (retd) B Sudershan Reddy has championed the cause of social, economic and political justice, and has always stood on the side of the common man and the marginalised.
The Andhra Pradesh-born Justice (retd) Reddy, had served as an additional judge at the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 1993, and later became Goa’s first Lok Ayukta. The Lok Ayukta tenure had ended abruptly when he resigned in seven months. He was also the Chief Justice of Guwahati High Court, before he became a Supreme Court judge.
