‘Biggest loser,’ multimillionaire and murder accused among candidates announced in first phase of voting
A man who has lost hundreds of elections in about four decades, seven people accused of murder and the multimillionaire son of a veteran politician are among candidates seeking office in India’s elections.
Dr K Padmarajan has contested and lost 240 elections in the past 36 years, but the man known as India’s “election king” is undeterred.
He comes from Mettur, in Tamil Nadu, and is one of about 1,600 candidates vying for 102 seats in the first phase of voting.
The tyre shop owner, who also trained as a homoeopathic doctor, has been contesting elections as an independent candidate since 1988 – with tyres as his electoral symbol.
Dr Padmarajan, 64, has endured defeat in local municipality polls, 73 state assembly elections and 32 Lok Sabha elections, including against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the time a legislator, and former prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.
In addition, Dr Padmarajan has thrown his hat in the ring for 50 elections for the Rajya Sabha, India’s upper house of Parliament, and six presidential elections.
His dubious distinction has already earned him a place in the Limca Book of Records, which is the Indian version of Guinness World Records.
“Failure, failure, failure. Not a single victory,” Dr Padmarajan told The National. “I started fighting elections in 1988 as a simple citizen. But no one voted for me, and I only faced failure.
“But this failure has given me fame so I tell people to not vote for me so I can retain the record. I’ll get a heart attack if I win.”
In this election, Dr Padmarajan is running for a parliamentary seat in Tamil Nadu’s Dharmapuri district, where voting will be held on Friday, and Thrissur in neighbouring Kerala state, which goes to the polls on April 26
India allows eligible citizens to stand for election in more than one constituency, whether as candidates of a political party or as independents.
Independents are usually at a disadvantage compared to those fielded by the major political parties, which spend billions of rupees to reach out to voters through mass rallies and advertisements.
Vijayprakash Kondekar, 77, a retired government employee from Pune, in the western state of Maharashtra, has contested and lost 24 elections over the past three decades.
He is seeking to level the playing field by advocating zero-budget poll campaigns.
“Political parties run for elections on money from the pockets of people.
“If leaders have worked for the people, why do they need these big rallies and campaigns? I am against this,” Mr Kondekar said.
Wearing a cotton dhoti, a traditional kilt, the septuagenarian with a flowing beard campaigns by walking around with a sign, sometimes on a metal cart, that says “Main Pradhanmantri”
– Hindi for “I am Prime Minister”.
He urged voters to pick his electoral symbol, a boot, on the electronic voting machines used in India’s polls.
The only financial support he is seeking is a donation of one rupee a person towards the cost of filing his nomination papers – about 25,000 rupees ($300) – in Pune constituency, which goes to polls on May 13.
“I return one rupee if somebody gives me two rupees. This is my style of communication,” he said.
But not every candidate needs to seek donations.
Nakul Nath, whose father Kamal Nath was chief minister of the central state of Madhya Pradesh between 2018 and
2020, is the richest candidate in the first phase of elections.
Mr Nath, 49, who is seeking re-election in the state’s Chhindwara constituency as a candidate of the main opposition Indian National Congress party, has declared assets worth 7.16 billion rupees ($86 million), according to his election affidavit submitted to the Election Commission.
At the other end of the scale is Ponraj K, 58, from Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, who has declared total assets worth 320 rupees ($4).
Out of the 1,625 candidates in the first phase of the election, 252 have criminal cases pending against them, non-profits the Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch said, citing analysis of sworn affidavits.
Under India’s law, citizens facing criminal cases can stand for election, but will be disqualified if subsequently convicted and sentenced to a prison term of two years or more.
Seven candidates said they were facing murder charges while 19 are accused of attempted murder.
Out of the 77 candidates fielded by Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, 28 face criminal cases, as do 19 of the 56 Congress party candidates.
Among regional parties, all four candidates of the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar state face criminal cases, as do 13 of the 22 candidates of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the ruling party of Tamil Nadu state, according to the ADR and National Election Watch analysis.
The Samajwadi Party in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has three candidates facing criminal cases among the seven standing in constituencies that vote on Friday, while the All India Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, in eastern India, has two among its five firstphase contenders.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission’s allocation of symbols to independents has produced an eclectic mix, including items such as laptops, grapes, refrigerators, toothbrushes and even ice cream cones, reported.