On August 11, Maharashtra Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan called on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin at his Chitranjan Avenue residence. It was an official visit to inquire about Stalin’s health. Though Radhakrishnan’s was a courtesy call, the timing of the meeting was considered crucial, as it was just days after Jagdeep Dhankhar had quit as the vice president.
The political circles in Tamil Nadu, however, decoded the reason behind Radhakrishnan’s visit. The buzz was that he was on the likely list of candidates for the vice president post, keeping in mind the upcoming assembly elections in 2026.
Radhakrishnan, who started his political journey at the age of 16 with the RSS, is known for his ideological roots. From serving as the BJP president of the state unit for a brief period and then being elected from the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency twice, Radhakrishnan’s elevation as the vice president candidate is looked at as a calculated move by the BJP to appease the voters in West Tamil Nadu.
Dominated by the Gounder community, the West Tamil Nadu, also known as the Kongu region, is considered to be a strong forte of the AIADMK and the BJP combine. The Gounder community, or the Kongu Vellar community, is known for its business acumen and is considered to be one of the powerful communities, contributing to the state’s textile and automotive business growth. Of late, the Gounders, who contribute to over 10 per cent of the total electorate in the state, play a decisive role in shaping the electoral outcome from the Kongu region. Radhakrishnan, former Tamil Nadu BJP chief K. Annamalai and AIADMK leader Edappadi K. Palaniswamy hail from this community.
In the 2021 elections, the AIADMK-BJP alliance won a majority of seats from this region. Again in 2024, BJP’s K. Annamalai contested from Coimbatore and increased BJP’s vote share. Now, the shared caste identity and Radhakrishnan’s elevation are seen as an electoral strategy by the BJP to consolidate the Gounder community votes in the region.
The DMK alliance, with former minister V. Senthil Balaji at the helm of affairs in the region, had created a huge dent in the AIADMK-BJP’s growth in the Kongu region. Recently, Stalin said that the Kongu region will not be AIADMK’s forte anymore, and the DMK will break into this.
Sources indicate that the strategy to elevate Radhakrishnan was aimed at reinforcing the AIADMK alliance by strengthening the political influence of the Gounder community, on one hand, and helping to rebuild the party in the region, on the other. When the BJP replaced Annamalai, from West Tamil Nadu, with Nainar Nagendran, who hails from the south, political circles said that the BJP’s calculation was to tap the Thevar community's votes in southern Tamil Nadu.
However, replacing Annamalai had upset the caste equations in the western region for the BJP, which had a solid vote bank in constituencies like Coimbatore. And now, by nominating Radhakrishnan as the vice president candidate, a no-nonsense man from this region, the NDA is attempting to control the damage caused by Annamalai’s exit and make the community stay relevant in the BJP’s political narrative. Apparently, Radhakrishnan, though a staunch RSS man, is known for his skills in balancing the caste appeal combined with his organisational skills.
Sources say that the DMK will stand by the candidate nominated by the INDIA Bloc and is unlikely to support Radhakrishnan even though he hails from Tamil Nadu. Radhakrishnan has maintained a good rapport with the DMK leadership since his tenure as the state president. When Stalin's brother-in-law and editor of DMK mouthpiece Murasoli, Selvam, died in Chennai, Radhakrishnan was one of the BJP leaders to call on the chief minister and pay homage to Selvam.