Come elections, it is time for K. Padmarajan of Raman Nagar near Mettur to jump into the poll fray.
Mr. Padmarajan, who has been in the electoral fray in one election or the other across the country for the last 27 years, filed his nomination for the 176th time on Monday.
This time he filed his papers for the post of councillor of ward No. 3 of Veerakkalpudhur town panchayat near Mettur.
Mr. Padmarajan launched his electoral journey in the 1989 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections from Mettur constituency in Salem district, when he polled about 6,000 votes.
His 175 election attempts so far included Assembly, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and even for the post of President of India.
The presence of political heavy weights did not deter Mr. Padmarajan from jumping into the fray. He has unsuccessfully contested against A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, K. R. Narayanan, P. V. Narasimha Rao, Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, M. Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa and S. M. Krishna.
Mr. Padmarajan, a Mettur-based retreading workshop owner, also filed his nomination papers against BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in the Vadodara constituency in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Mr. Padmarajan, nicknamed as ‘election king’, has found a place in the Limca Book of Records for being the ‘most unsuccessful candidate’. In the last Assembly elections, he contested in two constituencies – against DMDK leader Vijayakanth in Ulundurpet constituency and against the AIADMK leader and former Minister S. Semmalai in Mettur constituency.
