A Man for all Elections

Madanlal Agrawal has nursed an unusual passion-fighting elections. He has contested every election since 1968 and lost his deposit on every occasion. Nevertheless, he soldiers on gamely, vowing to contest in all the constituencies in the elections this week!

Jitendra Muchhal profiles the eternal candidate.

If ‘Dharatipaked’ Madanlal Agrawal really does what he claims to, it would be simply incredible. The possibility, however, seems remote. Setting apart all previous electoral landslides and records to a minuscule molehill in the world’s largest democracy, he says, “I propose to contest for all the 545 parliamentary seats in the forthcoming general elections. My representative and I shall file the nomination papers for all the seats. The money required for all this shall be raised through a returnable loan.”

That has indeed been his practice since 1968, when he fought his first election for the municipal corporation of Gwalior, his hometown. Reminiscing about his past, Dharatipakad says, ” When I was a very young boy of five or six, I used to be very reluctant to go to school. When forced by my elders, I would lie prostrate, holding the ground with my palms for support. Since then, the prefix ‘Dharatipakad’ has stuck on.”

Born in a business family Dharatipakad had a chequered education. After securing good marks in class V, he left school only to rejoin in class VII. Leaving once again in class X he appeared as a private candidate at the intermediate level, but failed. Then, after a gap of almost 14 years, he managed to complete his graduation in arts and law.

Dharatipakad showed the first signs of freakish behaviour when he went to his grandfather’s funeral stark naked. “It suddenly dawned on me, He says , “that nothing, not even the loin cloth, goes with a man. Some years later, when one of my sons passed away, I laughed all the way to the crematorium, for I am of the opinion that the expression of sorrow by close relatives is very painful to the soul of the deceased.”

Dharatipakad started attending to the family business at a very young age and learnt the ropes in a very short period. His family had ventured into the sanitaryware retail trade but the business ran into heavy losses. He took up the task to set the shop in order and that was when the trouble started. “When the sanitaryware shop started showing profits, my brothers became jealous, which led to mutual conflicts. They used to beat me-in fact, they even registered a complaint in the police against me. But I had firmly resolved not to retaliate against their false allegations.”

It was around this time that Dharatipakad was drawn towards electioneering. For “as long as people with complete devotion, spirit of selfless service and sacrifice do not come to power, the world cannot be at peace”.

In the 1968 corporation elections in Gwalior, when Dharatipakad made his debut as a candidate, it was a close finish, according to him. “I had fair chances of winning, but my brothers played foul. They forcibly removed my campaign personnel and instigated people against me.” The result-he lost.

Dharatipakad has contested innumerable elections since then, at every level, with a consistent track record of always forfeiting his deposit. But that has not deterred him in the least. He has mostly contested against mega-candidates, heavyweights like Mrs. Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Madhavrao Scindia.

Contesting against luminaries has a distinct advantage. “The entire nation’s attention is focused on these constituencies- thus I am able to get easier access to the media and the people.”

He found himself a non-starter in the vice-presidential and presidential elections, when his nomination papers were rejected. He filed writ and review petitions in the Supreme Court, both of which were rejected. Being a qualified lawyer, Dharatipakad is a member of the Bar Association of the Supreme Court and prepares and debates these petitions himself. He had also filed an election petition (Supreme Court No 430/82) against the misuse of government machinery in the election of Rajiv Gandhi in Amethi 1984, which was turned down for lack of proper credentials “In the past 20 years, I have attached and participated in the electoral process in the country at every level and my experience and observations are distressing. Elections are totally rigged. Booth capturing, false voting, the use of muscle and money power and other malpractices-it is impossible for a good, honest candidate to win in such a perverted atmosphere. All this is due to the vested interests of the businessmen-politicians nexus which results in unstinted prosperity and wealth in the top echelons, while the woes of the common people increase day by day. But who cares?”

Yet, Dharatipakad is not one to settle for a compromise. He calls for a complete revolution. “What we need now is a new system of indirect elections, and Parliament made only of people with a bonafide track record of integrity and honesty who are ready to break all shackles of relationships before entering public life. As long as people in public life continue to be attached to their families, they are unable to do full justice to their duty. Nehru was a dedicated and an intelligent person, but he always wanted to promote Indira. So his services were not selfless. His successor, Shastri, was the kind of man that India desperately needs now, ” He opines.

Dharatipakad is not at all perturbed if people brand him mad or eccentric- which they do. Socrates, He declares, was treated as a mad man, so was Galileo, so too were the Wright brothers, just because “they had the conviction to sing a different tune which sounded unpleasant- as it was against the accepted norms-but which was the truth. Such a person may not be able to bring a change for good in his lifetime. But that should not be a hindrance in doing one’s job- the results will be there for all to see, may be tomorrow, may be 200 years later.”

Holding both Rajiv Gandhi and V.P. Singh in high esteem, he is nevertheless distressed with the type of men around them who call the shots. “No party has all the workers fully devoted. But those few who go astray are enough to ruin and tarnish the party image. Now, these men Arun Nehru and Sanjay Singh were Rajiv Gandhi’s campaign managers in the Amethi election in 1984. I had seen with my own eyes there-votes being polled for people long deceased, one man voting several times and so on. Now these very men have switched allegiance to V.P. Singh owing to selfish motives. With such conmen in his bandwagon, the fate of V.P. Singh is not difficult to predict.” It is in the face of all this that he would like to usher in a utopian era of peace and prosperity. “Sadly, good people are no longer keen to partake in politicking, for they are disgusted with it,” the crusader despairs.

Dharatipakad’s style of campaigning is quite unique. Dressed in all sorts of weird attire, with bells, lanterns and megaphones clinging to his body and selling (Not distributing!) election manifestoes and pamphlets, he says, “My dress is of no consequence to me. I wear whatever I have and even if I do not have anything, I don’t mind. Again, my out-of-norm sense of dress attracts people to whom I can convey my feelings.” He intends to continue with his relentless struggle, not with standing his most recent setback-his nomination for the on going elections has been rejected outright for want of a security deposit. Still, this is a “non-issue” for him!

In such a fierce, cut-throat competitive environment for survival and winning at all costs, here then is a man who fights to lose. Every time.

The odds are heavily loaded against him, the stakes really high, but he carries on. Sitting across Dharatipakad gulping down a glass of water every five minutes, one ponders for a moment. Does this feeling of despair and anguish, the burning desire to replace and overthrow decaying systems not reflect the feelings of every one of us? Indeed, his approach to cure the ailment infecting the nation may seem preposterous, but the precise diagnosis of the malignancy and the ability to articulate it is there all right.