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The evergreen candidate

He is to the polls what Dev Anand is to cinema: Evergreen.

If Dev Anand, at 74, is still going strong on the silver screen (at least, he has promised to!), Kaka Joginder Singh, at 64, is hard in the fray on the poll scene. The coming election -- which will see him fighting the Bharatiya Janata Party's Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani (in Lucknow and Gandhinagar, respectively) -- is his, hmm, let's see... 301st!

''Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani are again fighting me," he says, ''I filed my nomination papers as an Independent candidate on January 21 and 28. Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani filed their papers after me."

Interestingly, Kaka, better known as Dhartipakkad, says he doesn't really like contesting elections. Unfortunately, some uncontrollable 'inspiration' always lifts him bodily and drop him plonk into the middle of the electoral fray.

"Something inspires me and suddenly I go for it," is how he puts it.

He has, all through his uncommon career, contested as an Independent. And, expectedly, always lost.

Kaka, who holds master's degrees in philosophy and sociology, has so far contested the polls from 14 states since 1962, including elections to the Presidency and the state assemblies.

The 14th among 16 siblings, he was born in Gujranwala, now in Pakistan, in 1934. His family owns a textiles business at Bareili in Uttar Pradesh. He has six sons and a daughter.

Kaka, who looks upon the security amount which he has always lost as his 'humble contribution' to the national fund, says he has never campaigned or spent money to canvass support.

His 'manifesto' promises to repay all foreign loans, inculcate sterling character in children, and bring back the barter system to cure the ills of the Indian economy.

Haresh Pandya, UNI