Quest for maximum polls fought record goes on for election king

The ‘election king’ has done it again. For the 174th time, Salem-based K Padmarajan has lost an election. He was contesting against DMDK’s Vijayakanth from Ulundurpet and S Semmalai from Mettur. “I have registered my 174th loss with this election. This was the first time I was contesting against Vijayakanth and I am happy to have lost,” says Padmarajan. [caption id=“attachment_2791494” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The election king, Dr. K Padmarajan. Image source: Facebook/ Padmarajan Electionking[/caption] The 57-year-old homeopathic doctor turned tyre trader has only one goal, to set a record of contesting the maximum number of elections. He began contesting in elections in 1988 with an intention to raise awareness that anybody, whether rich or poor can contest in an election. While he has never campaigned for any election he has lost Rs 20 lakh as deposit money. Though he has already entered the Limca Book of World Records and the Guiness Book of World Records as the ‘Most Unsuccessful Candidate’ a couple of times, he still contests all the elections he can. “I am going to continue to contest elections all my life. On May 24th, I will be filing my next nomination for Rajya Sabha elections in Chennai,” he says. From local Panchayat elections to the Presidential elections, he has fought them all. In the past he has contested against PM Narendra Modi, former Tamil Nadu CMs J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi, President Pranab Mukherjee, former presidents APJ Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil, former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, PV Narasimha Rao, Kerala chief minister K Karunakaran and former Union minister AK Antony. “I have contested against five prime ministers, 11 chief ministers and 13 Central ministers. Next I hope to contest against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi or whoever will become a PM candidate,” Padmarajan said. The only other person to have such a record is Kaka Joginder Singh, who contested and lost over 300 elections in his lifetime. He claims that he is the reason why the Election Commission brought in an amendment in 1996 restricting candidates to contest only from two seats. This was after he filed nominations to contest from five Lok Sabha constituencies at a time. He is currently in the process of registering his own political party ‘Election King Failure Party’. Recently he even featured on Star Plus show On Air with AIB.