With the victory of C P Radhakrishnan, the BJP has secured the office of the Vice-President with its usual precision.Only six weeks earlier, the ruling party had faced an unprecedented situation after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned as V-P in the middle of his term amid reports that he fell out with the government. Though Dhankar resigned on health grounds, it was something that had never happened before and the story of how and why he quit has yet to emerge. However, now, following the election of his successor, the BJP has made another symbolic statement.AdvertisementRadhakrishnan is from the Other Backward Class (OBC) Gounder community in western Tamil Nadu. With the OBCs becoming a powerful metaphor of politics in the country and vigorously courted by both the BJP and the Opposition — Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has been emphasising the need for a caste census — the BJP has made a telling point yet again. The top three offices in the country are now occupied by an Adivasi woman (President Droupadi Murmu) and two men from the OBC community, one from the south and the other from the west, but with a pan-India appeal (Radhakrishnan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi).V-P elections have not normally elicited the kind of hype that this contest generated. The fight was not between the two candidates. Their campaign, if anything, was low-key, with Opposition nominee and former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy urging MPs to follow their conscience and Radhakrishnan espousing the nationalist cause. While the outcome was never in doubt, the main question was whether cross-voting could occur from the ruling alliance’s side. There was talk about the fallout of the Dhankhar episode, allusions to the “growing unhappiness” amongst some BJP MPs, and the implications of the defeat of BJP leader Sanjeev Balyan in a local Delhi club election (he lost to his party colleague Rajeev Pratap Rudy, who appeared to have received the support of the entire Opposition as well as some BJP MPs).However, contrary to the buzz the Opposition created in the last few days about cross-voting in the NDA, the opposite appeared to have happened on Tuesday. Radhakrishnan polled 452 first-preference votes, Justice Reddy received 300, and there were 15 “invalid” votes.AdvertisementCross-voting in V-P elections in the past was not unusual. Even in the 1997 election, when the government was probably the weakest-ever coalition arrangement under I K Gujral, Krishan Kant of the Janata Dal was elected to the post. He received a convincing 441 votes while Surjit Singh Barnala of the Akali Dal polled 273 votes. However, there were 30 absentions and as many as 47 “invalid” votes.However, this time it assumed importance given the stakes for the ruling side. Any cross-voting from the BJP would have signalled a weakening of the party leadership’s hold over the organisation and the government. Ensuring cross-voting from the Opposition’s side will send the message that the PM’s grip on the party and the government has not slackened.Besides Dhankhar’s resignation, the changes in the global order are also unprecedented. The government is navigating a difficult situation, with US President Donald Trump targeting the country with high tariffs and his advisors berating it day after day. And now comes the tumult and violence in Nepal, where the government of K P Sharma Oli has been dehroned on the lines of what happened in Bangladesh last year. All of this happening in the neighbourhood has a bearing on the country as well.Understanding the choicesIt is understandable why the BJP fielded Radhakrishnan for the V-P election, given its experience with Dhankar and earlier with Governor Satya Pal Malik, who passed away last month. Both were “outsiders” brought into the BJP ecosystem. This time, the BJP brass wanted someone who was a quintessential “insider” and Radhakrishnan fit the bill. The PM was known to have a personal equation with him and it was seen as a goodwill gesture to the RSS. Radhakrishnan ticked several boxes: a swayamsevak from the age of 16, twice Lok Sabha MP from Coimbatore, the BJP chief with links across party lines in Tamil Nadu, where the party has been trying to make serious inroads. Managing that will turn it into a serious pan-national party.What is more is that Radhakrishnan was the Governor of three states (he had additional charge of one of those), a reputation for being non-abrasive and friendly with those of other political persuasions, and belongs to the Gounder community that is influential in western Tamil Nadu.Though the number two in the warrant of protocol, the real challenge for the new V-P will lie in running the Rajya Sabha. As its Chairman, he has to move in step with the government and provide the Opposition with the confidence that its voice will be heard.most readWhile the reasons for the BJP’s choice were evident, it was less clear what the Opposition gained politically by plumping for Justice Reddy, a distinguished jurist. There was the name of the DMK’s Tiruchi Siva, also an OBC from Tamil Nadu. Choosing him might have helped in next year’s Tamil Nadu elections. Others had suggested a figure from Bihar, again to send a suitable signal to the poll-bound state. But, suddenly, out of the blue, it was Justice Reddy, who is close to Telangana CM Revanth Reddy, who made the grade.Now all eyes are on how PM Modi builds on the “Veep advantage” and how he infuses new energy into the government and the party organisation — the decision on the new BJP president is still pending — to address the hard issues of governance.(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide)