Meet M Venkaiah Naidu — India''s ''political'' Vice-President

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 5

In Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu, India has as its 15th Vice-President a hardcore politician, someone who has been in the public life for more than four decades — or what he describes as a “people’s person”.  With Naidu’s election, the BJP now holds all three top constitutional positions of the country — the President, the Vice-President and the Prime Minister.  

Naidu comes with rich political experience. He has not just been in charge of key portfolios in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet but has also headed the organisation he refers to as his “maa” (mother) as its President-the key charge that Amit Shah, the BJP’s new-age “Chanakya” holds today.  

According to Naidu’s close associates, he brought dynamism and synergy in the ministries he held and it would not be “out of place to expect action and change oriented Naidu to aim at similar improvement in the functioning of the Rajya Sabha as its Chairperson”. 

Naidu’s appointment to the protocol-wise second top Constitutional position of the country is expected to augment the saffron party’s political endeavour down south. His moorings in Chavatapalem, a remote village in the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh, are supposed to achieve that for the BJP.

Alongside his outreach and “friendships” among various political parties is also expected to help in effective functioning of the Rajya Sabha where the party-led NDA is in a minority. 

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Naidu’s election comes at a time when the BJP has emerged as the number one party in the Rajya Sabha but the numbers continue to be stacked against it in favour of the Congress-led Opposition. 

Naidu has promised to “follow and strengthen the Constitutional practices and Parliamentary democratic system” but with him in the Chair, the BJP hopes to achieve more from the Upper House than it had been able to in the past three years since it came to power. 

The Vice-Presidential job is a Constitutional office and the substantive part the role is as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. This is the second time that the Rajya Sabha will have an RSS- BJP man (10 years there was Bhairon Singh Shekhawat tenure) in the Chair. 

This apart, that the 68-year-old was no mood to end his political journey so early in life is now a stated fact. “Never am I going to participate in vice-president election even if anyone compels me". 

“Happiness for me is to meet people, be among them and serve them. I cannot stay away from people by taking up any ceremonial position,” Naidu had said amid speculations about his nominations from the post. 

His journey with the BJP did not end just with a resignation from all party and Cabinet positions but with the pain of leaving his “mother”. “Now I do not belong to any party,” Naidu said after filing nomination papers that many also perceived as the end of the political road for an intensely political man. As he and his family prepare to move to 6 Maulana Azad, the Vice-President’s House, the add-on assignment of the Rajya Sabha chairman will nonetheless keep him connected with the active politics he so loves.  

“I wanted to see Modi come back to power in 2019 after which I wanted to resign from active politics. But destiny has other plans for me,” said Naidu, also known for his penchant for slogans and rhyming sentences. 

Earlier, while stating that there was no chance of him contesting the Vice-Presidential election, he quipped he neither wants to become the "rashtrapati" (president) nor the "uparashtrapati" (vice-president) and was happy being Usha's "pati" (spouse). Usha is his wife.