Most unsuccessful candidate Padmarajan to contest VP polls

For this 58-year old Padmarajan in Tamil Nadu contesting elections is the part of his persona.
 
Padmarajan has taken part in the polls across the country since 1988 that includes President and vice President elections. There are been no major elections in the country in which he has not taken part.
 
After his latest venture to file his nomination papers for vice president elections against NDA nominee Venkaiah Naidu and UPA candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi, he broke the own record by contesting for 181 times.
 
Some of his star candidates against whom he contested earlier include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, P V Narasimha Rao, Atal Behari Vajpayee. DMK chief M Karunanidhi and late J Jayalalithaa.
 
Padmarajan's last outing was when he filed nomination papers for Presidential polls against NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind and UPA nominee Meira Kumar.
 
However, his paper was rejected as the documents did not have the support of MLAs and MPs.
 
Though Padmarajan is yet to succeed at the hustings after having contested so many elections for the past three decades, he still expresses confidence that he would succeed one day.
 
So far, Padmarajan had filed nomination papers five times to Presidential and Vice Presidential elections respectively.
 
Nicknamed as 'Election King', Padmarajan told Deccan Herald that contesting election was his passion whether he succeed it or not. "I file nomination throughout my life, and definetly some day I will succeed", he added.
 
He said that he has lost more than Rs 20 lakh in deposits. An owner of the puncher shop at Mettur in Salem district of Tamil Nadu, he earns few thousand rupees in a month. "I separately save money for elections", he said.
 
His name already finds mention in the Limca Book of record since 2013 of having unsuccessfully contested 145 in various polls across the country.
 
The record stated that Padmarajan was the most unsuccessful candidate in the country having contested against political bigwigs including presidential candidates, prime ministers, chief ministers and others since 1988.
 
The highest number of votes he ever secured was 6,273 from his home (assembly) constituency of Mettur in 2011, the record said.