C. P. Radhakrishnan

Chandrapuram Ponnusami Radhakrishnan (born 4 May 1957) is an Indian politician who is serving as the 15th Vice President of India since 12 September 2025. He previously served as the Governor of various states, and as a member of parliament in Lok Sabha. Born in Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu in 1957, Radhakrishnan obtained his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from V. O. Chidambaram College in Thoothukudi. He has been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Jana Sangh since his youth. In 1974, he became part of the Jan Sangh's state executive committee in Tamil Nadu, and later became part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), when it was founded in 1980. Representing the BJP, Radhakrishnan was elected to the Lok Sabha twice from Coimbatore in the 1998 and 1999 general elections. Since then, he had unsuccessfully contested three general elections from the same constituency in 2004, 2014, and 2019. He served as the state president of the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP from 2003 to 2006. Radhakrishnan was appointed as the Governor of Jharkhand in February 2023 and served in the position till July 2024. He also held additional charges as the Governor of Telangana and Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry in 2024. He served as the Governor of Maharashtra from July 2024 to September 2025. Following the resignation of the vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar in August 2025, Radhakrishnan was named as the candidate of the National Democratic Alliance for the 2025 Indian vice presidential election. In the elections held on 9 September 2025, he defeated B. Sudarshan Reddy and was sworn in as the vice president on 12 September 2025. He is the 17th vice president of India.