In this photograph taken on September 11, 2013, Indian shop owner K. Padmarajan poses during campaigning in Vadodra in the western state of Gujarat.
Shop owner K. Padmarajan doesn't feel like a loser. In fact, he sees much to celebrate in the 158 times he has stood for public office and failed.
Starting out in 1988, the Tamil Nadu resident had a point to prove -- to those who laughed at the ambitions of a man who repaired tyres for a living and to the cynics who scorned Indian democracy with all its flaws and inefficiencies.
"Back then, I owned a cycle puncture repair shop and a thought struck me that I, an ordinary man with an ordinary income and no special status in society, could contest the elections," he said.
He lost. And then lost again and again. Over 26 years, he has competed hopelessly for local assembly seats and parliament, often standing against big names such as prime ministers A.B. Vajpayee or Manmohan Singh. (
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Today, he is running for parliament from Vadodara, the constituency of election frontrunner
Narendra Modi, Gujarat, which goes to the polls in the latest stage of the country's mammoth election.
"I always chose to contest against the newsmakers. At the moment, if there's one VIP who's making all the headlines, it's Narendra Modi," Mr Padmarajan explained by telephone.
In all, he says he has forfeited Rs 12 lakhs in deposits tendered in his lonely pursuit, in the process earning a place in the Limca Book of Records, the national repository of eccentric record-making.
"I have never contested an election to win and the results just don't matter to me," laughs the entrepreneur whose tyre shop has flourished alongside his other business, a homeopathic medical practice.
His best result came in 2011 when he stood for an assembly seat in his home constituency of Mettur in southern Tamil Nadu state. He won 6,273 votes.
Mr Padmarajan says he will continue his political stint as an independent.
While he is the biggest living election loser, however, another man holds the record for the total number of failures. Kaka Joginder Singh, who died in 1998, stood for office more than 300 times.