Be it any election in any part of the country, you will most likely find K. Padmarajan of Salem’s Mettur town in the fray.
When the 56-year-old, contesting as an independent candidate from Mettur, filed his nomination papers on Friday — the opening day of filing the papers — it was his 173rd time in the past 28 years. He has failed to win an election in the previous 172 attempts, thereby finding himself in the Limca Book of Records for being the “most unsuccessful candidate” in the country’s electoral history. Nicknamed the ‘Election King’, Mr. Padmarajan is happy about the publicity he is getting, but fighting polls is proving to be costly nowadays. Till date, he has lost more than Rs. 20 lakh in deposits.
Mr. Padmarajan, in fact, filed nomination papers for both the Presidential and Vice Presidential elections thrice, but his applications were rejected.
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In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, he went up against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Vadodara, and even fought Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in last year’s R.K. Nagar by-poll.
The owner of a tyre-vulcanising shop, Mr. Padmarajan made electoral debut from Mettur in the Assembly elections of 1989. Since then, he has contested against some iconic leaders such as P.V. Narasimha Raj, Atal Behari Vajpayee, M. Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa, Karunakaran, S.M. Krishna, A.K. Antony and Yeduyurappa.
In the 1996 elections, he caused a flutter by filing nomination papers in eight constituencies — five Lok Sabha constituencies and three Assembly seats. This forced the Election Commission to later amend the law to ensure that a candidate can contest only from two constituencies at a time.
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This time around, it is not Mettur alone. Mr. Padmarajan has decided to contest against DMDK chief Vijayakant from Ulundurpettai. He will file his papers on April 25.