Pon Radhakrishnan: BJP's lone ranger in Tamil Nadu

While there was a widespread feeling that Narendra Modi’s rallies across Tamil Nadu a week before polling would improve the BJP’s chances, they came a tad too late in the day.

As a result, the BJP has won only one of the seven seats it contested in, with its state president Pon Radhakrishnan sailing past H Vasanthakumar of the Congress in Kanniyakumari by a margin of about 1,29,000 votes and getting more than twice as many votes as AIADMK’s D John Thankam. The BJP has not had a Lok Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu in the past 10 years.

"The only other winner in the BJP's seven-party 'rainbow alliance', which Radhakrishnan was instrumental in stitching together, was Pattali Makkal Katchi's (PMK) Anbumani Ramadoss, former union health minister (PMK), who won in Dharmapuri. Vijayakanth's Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), which contested in 14 seats and Vaiko's Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which contested in half as many seats, drew a blank."

Radhakrishnan, a lawyer who joined the Hindu Munnani, a Tamil Nadu-based right-wing organization, in 1990, is known for his clean image and was minister of state for urban development and poverty alleviation in the Atal Bihari Vajpayeeled National Democratic Alliance government of 1999-2004. He first went to the Lok Sabha in 1999, winning on a BJP ticket from Nagercoil, in which election BJP won three other seats.

But Radhakrishnan lost the same seat to a CPI (M) candidate in 2004, and lost out to a DMK candidate in Kanniyakumari in 2009. DMDK could have been crucial to Radhakrishnan’s victory in this election as it got 8.9% of the votes in the constituency in 2009.

In October 2013, long before Modi called on actor Rajinikanth, Radhakrishnan sought his support to the BJP.