At least three ‘election kings’, the Aam Aadmi Party’s anti-nuclear trio from Idinthakarai protest site and a habitual ‘PIL muckraker’ of Chennai were among 63 candidates, who filed papers across the 40 constituencies in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, as nominations opened for the April 24 LS polls with the Election Commission notifying the schedule on Saturday.
The three compulsive contestants, who have earned the sobriquet ‘election kings’, were K Padmarajan, P N Sriramachandran and U Nagoor Meeran Peer Mohammed.
Filing his nomination papers in Dharmapuri constituency, where he will be pitted against PMK’s Anbumani Ramadoss and others, Padmarajan unveiled his ‘grand plan’ of fighting it out against BJP’s prime ministerial nominee, Narendra Modi, in Vadodara, Gujarat, too. When asked what would happen if he were to emerge victorious, he said: “I will die of heart attack.”
In the past, the homeopath from Mettur has taken on four Presidents, three PMs and 11 CMs and has lost over `12 lakh deposit amount.
Giving him company in Dharmapuri will be Sriramachandran, who contested against CM J Jayalalithaa and DMK chief M Karunandihi at Srirangam and Tiruvarur respectively in 2011. He also wants to take on Modi from Varanasi.
Mohammed, a photographer from Nagercoil, too has contested 26 Parliamentary and 21 Assembly elections in the past and never got his security deposit back. His present wealth is `55,55,555.
Of the nine candidates who turned up to file nomination papers on Day One in the city’s three constituencies, one was a known face, mostly in the corridors of the Madras High Court. ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy, who has a penchant for filing PILs, filed his nomination from South Chennai. AAP’s S P Udayakumar filed his papers in Nagercoil, M P Jesuraj in Tirunelveli and M Pushparayan in Thoothukudi.