New Delhi, Sept 12 (UNI) Chandrapuram Ponnusamy Radhakrishnan today took oath as the 15th Vice President of the country.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Radhakrishnan at a ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Before this, the certificate of election from the Election Commission declaring Radhakrishnan as the Vice President was read out.
On this occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former President Ram Nath Kovind, former Vice Presidents Jagdeep Dhankhar, Venkaiah Naidu, Hamid Ansari, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, union ministers JP Nadda, Nitin Gadkari and several other ministers and dignitaries were present.
The election for the Vice President was held on September 9 following Dhankhar’s resignation due to health reasons. In this election, Radhakrishnan, the candidate from the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), was declared elected. He defeated the Opposition’s candidate, B Sudarshan Reddy, by a margin of 152 votes.
Radhakrishnan was previously the Governor of Maharashtra. Born on May 4, 1957, in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, Radhakrishnan holds a degree in Business Administration. He began his public life as a volunteer with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and has now been elected as the Vice President of the country.
Radhakrishnan began his public life as an RSS volunteer, and in 1974, he became a member of the state executive of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.
In 1996, he was appointed the secretary of the BJP in Tamil Nadu. He was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time from Coimbatore in 1998, and was re-elected in 1999.
During his tenure as a Member of Parliament, he served as the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Textiles. He was also a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and the Consultative Committee on Finance. He was part of the special parliamentary committee that investigated the stock exchange scam.
In 2004, Radhakrishnan addressed the United Nations General Assembly as a member of the Indian parliamentary delegation. He was also a member of the first-ever Indian parliamentary delegation to visit Taiwan.
In 2016, Radhakrishnan was appointed chairman of the Coir Board in Kochi, a position he held for four years. Under his leadership, coir exports from India reached an all-time high of Rs 2,532 crore. From 2020 to 2022, he was in charge of the BJP’s Kerala unit.
He has significant administrative experience as well. On February 18, 2023, he was appointed Governor of Jharkhand. During the first four months of his tenure, he visited all 24 districts of the state and interacted with citizens and district officials.
He took oath as the Governor of Maharashtra on July 31, 2024. He also held the additional charge of Governor of Telangana and Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry.
