VP Elections: The Strange Case of Andhra and Tamil Nadu

The much anticipated vice presidential election has finally been completed and it is the NDA candidate CP Radhakrishnan, who won the election by a margin of 152 votes. He had a comfortable victory against his opponent Sudershan Reddy, who was strengthened by the INDIA alliance. 

Coming to the topic now, it needs to be established that the preference choices Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are completely peculiar and strange when it comes to the VP elections. 

All 39 MPs, who belong to Tamil Nadu reportedly voted against Tamil candidate CP Radhakrishnan, who was strengthened by the NDA. This is due to the fact that BJP or AIDMK did not win any MP seats in the previous MP election. 

As for the rolling DMK government, which has the majority of the MPs, they’re a part of the INDIA block and they voted for Sudershan Reddy, at their expense of their own Tamil candidate Radhakrishnan.

Coming to the Telugu state of Andhra Pradesh, all 36 MPs including Rajya Sabha individuals voted for Tamil candidate Radhakrishnan. This is due to the fact that the only opposition party YSR Congress also decided to back NDA which turned out to be a strange scenario. 

While the political parties in Tamil Nadu back the Telugu candidate Sudarshan Reddy, the parties in Andhra Pradesh backed Tamil candidate Radhakrishnan. This is an ironic occurrence in South Indian politics.