Pon Radhakrishnan

After Kamaraj's demise, some of his family members joined the Janata Party. Radhakrishnan's brother Ramakrishnan joined the Hindu Nationalist Jana Sangh 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. In 1981, Radhakrishnan joined a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and later became its secretary. Later, Radhakrishnan's father Ponnaya Ayyappan was elected as the District President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).[2]

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.[2]

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.[2]

Pon Radhakrishnan won the 1999 Lok Sabha election from Nagercoil constituency and became Minister of State for Youth Affairs in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government of 1999–2004. Later, he also served as Minister of State for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation.[3] Pon Radhakrishnan lost the elections in 2004, 2009 and 2019.[4]

He was president of Tamil Nadu state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, resigning the position when he became a Minister of State in the Narendra Modi-led government.[5] He had won in a Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 Indian general election, from Kanyakumari constituency by a margin of 1,28,662 votes.[6] 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 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.[7] Police complaints were also filed against him.[8]

He lost the elections in 2019 to H. Vasanthakumar from Indian National Congress.

After the death of Vasanthakumar, he again contest in 2021 by-election. But he was defeated by Vijay Vasanth who the son of late Vasanthakumar.

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.[11] 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.[12][13]

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.[14][15]

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