Pon Radhakrishnan (born 1 March 1952) is an Indian politician from

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

, representing the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

. He was the Minister of State in the

Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance. Lists of current ministries of finance Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Finance and Ec ...

and Ministry of Shipping between May 2014 and May 2019. Earlier, he served in the Union Minister of State for Road Transport & Highways in the NDA government. He has served as the minister of state for Youth affairs and Minister of State in the

Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation was a ministry of the Government of India responsible for urban poverty, housing, and employment programs. It involved in national policy decisions and coordinates with Indian central minist ...

Third Vajpayee Ministry Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime Minister of India for third time on 13 October 1999. He headed his Third Vajpayee Ministry. Here is the list of ministers in his ministry. Cabinet ministers ...

. He is elected to

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

from

Kanyakumari Kanniyakumari (; , referring to Devi Kanya Kumari), also known as Cape Comorin, is a city in Kanniyakumari district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent and the southernmost city in mainland Ind ...

in 2014. He lost in the recent 2019 parliamentary elections.

Personal life

Radhakrishnan was born on March 1, 1952, in Alanthangarai village, Kanyakumari district to his father Ponnaya Ayyappan and mother Thangakani into a traditional Congress family, Radhakrishnan holds a B.A. Degree in Government Law College, Chennai.

Political career

Early political career

After

Kamaraj Kumaraswami Kamaraj (15 July 1903 – 2 October 1975, hinduonnet.com. 15–28 September 2001), popularly known as Kamarajar was an Indian independence activist and politician who served as the Chief Minister of Madras State (Tamil Nadu) ...

's demise, some of his family members joined the Janata Party. Radhakrishnan's brother Ramakrishnan joined the

Hindu Nationalist Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" or the correct term ''Hindū rāṣṭ ...

Jana Sangh The Bharatiya Jana Sangh ( BJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh, full name: Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh; ) (ISO 15919: '' Akhila Bhāratīya Jana Saṅgha '' ) was an Indian right wing political party that existed from 1951 to 1977 and was the pol ...

and took charge as the district chairman. Radhakrishnan's uncle Chidambaram Athiswami Nadar contested and won the Colachal constituency in the 1977 elections on behalf of the

Janata Party The Janata Party ( JP, lit. ''People's Party'') was a political party that was founded as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian Nati ...

. In 1981, Radhakrishnan joined a

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family ...

(RSS) and later became its secretary. Later, Radhakrishnan's father Ponnaya Ayyappan was elected as the District President of

Vishwa Hindu Parishad The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) () is an Indian right-wing Hindu organization based on Hindu nationalism. The VHP was founded in 1964 by M. S. Golwalkar and S. S. Apte in collaboration with Swami Chinmayananda. Its stated objective is "t ...

(VHP). Radhakrishnan joined the Hindu Munnani which was started in 1980, began to grow slowly in the Kanyakumari district. He traveled with its founder Rama Gopalan throughout Tamil Nadu for about a year as his assistant. He also worked as a co-organizer of the Hindu Munnani in the state. Radhakrishnan contested the Lok Sabha elections in Nagercoil for the first time in the 1991 elections. Despite being in the Hindu Munnani at the time, he contested as a BJP candidate and got 1 lakh 2 thousand 29 votes.

As minister

Pon Radhakrishnan won the 1999

election from

Nagercoil Nagercoil, also spelt as Nagarkovil ("Temple of the Nāgas", or Nagaraja-Temple), is a city and the administrative headquarters of Kanyakumari District in Tamil Nadu state, India. Situated close to the tip of the Indian peninsula, it lies on ...

constituency and became Minister of State for Youth Affairs in the

Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months fr ...

-led NDA government of 1999–2004. Later, he also served as Minister of State for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation. Pon Radhakrishnan lost the elections in 2004, 2009 and 2019. He was president of

state unit of the

, resigning the position when he became a Minister of State in the

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

-led government. He had won in a Lok Sabha seat in the

2014 Indian general election General elections were held in India in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to elect the members of the 16th Lok Sabha. With 834 million registered voters, they were the largest-ever elections in the world until being surpassed by the 2019 ...

, from

constituency by a margin of 1,28,662 votes. During this tenure, he served as Minister of State in various portfolios like Heavy Industries, Shipping and Finance. Pon. Radhakrishnan participated in a BJP rally in support of

Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing a pathway to Indian citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Banglade ...

in Nagercoil in March 2020 where he spoke of chasing away Christian priests from the district. Many demanded that action be taken against Pon. Radhakrishnan for his communal speech which can incite violence. Police complaints were also filed against him. He lost the elections in 2019 to H. Vasanthakumar from Indian National Congress.

Political views

Radhakrishnan in 2019 asked Tamil people to study

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

. He said that could not learn Sanskrit for various reasons and that he was ashamed of it. He also said that Sanskrit and

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

are equal. He also urged parents to let their children to learn Sanskrit.

Controversies

Fishermen vote controversy

Fishermen in Kanniyakumari claimed that around 40,000 - 45,000 fishermen votes in the 48 coastal hamlets in Kanyakumari Lok Sabha constituency was deliberately removed from the electoral-list out of fear that the fishermen would vote against the lone BJP Union minister, Pon Radhakrishnan, contesting in the constituency during the 2019 Lok sabha elections. The coastal fishermen also complained that votes of inland fishermen in another 68 villages also have been removed purposely. They also alleged that their names were removed only a few days before the day of polling.

Other controversies

In September 2019, Radhakrishnan created a controversy after calling Tamil people as 'ungrateful'.He explained that the Tamil people failed to celebrate Modi after he praised the Tamil language. Later he claimed that he did not call all Tamils as ungrateful and only those doing politics with the language.

Elections

Lok Sabha Elections

Positions

* 1999 - Elected to

13th Lok Sabha The 13th Lok Sabha (10 October 1999 – 6 February 2004) is the thirteenth session of the Lok Sabha (House of the People, or lower house in the Parliament of India). It was convened after 1999 Indian general election held during September–Oc ...

. * 1999 to 2000 - Member, Standing Committee on Industry. * 2000 - Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Surface Transport. * 2000 to 2003 - Minister of State,

Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports is a branch of the Government of India which administers the Department of youth affairs and the Department of Sports in India. Anurag Thakur is the current Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports followed ...

. * 2003 - Minister of State, Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation. * 2003 - Minister of State, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. * 2014 - Re-elected to

16th Lok Sabha Members of the 16th Lok Sabha were elected during the 2014 Indian general election. The elections were conducted in 9 phases from 7 April 2014 to 12 May 2014 by the Election Commission of India. The results of the election were declared on 16 M ...

(2nd term). * 2014 to 2014 - Minister of State, Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises * 2014 to 2017- Minister of State, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and Ministry of Shipping * 2017 to 2019 - Minister of State,

and Ministry of Shipping

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Radhakrishnan, Pon 1952 births Living people Union Ministers from Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha members from Tamil Nadu India MPs 1999–2004 India MPs 2014–2019 Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Tamil Nadu People from Nagercoil Narendra Modi ministry People from Kanyakumari district