The Indian General Election is rightfully called the world's largest democratic exercise. There is nothing like the Indian election anywhere in the world. The sheer number of voters, candidate and seats and the chaos around it make it a unique spectacle.
The Indian Elections are so massive, some records set here could never be beaten. Here's a lowdown on a few of them.
BCCL
Pritam Munde, the daughter of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde holds the record for the biggest victory margin in an Indian election. Pritam who contested from Beed seat in 2014 following the death of her father won the election by a record margin of 6,96,321.?
BCCL
A total of 9,16,923 votes were polled against her name while her nearest rival, Ashokrao Shankarrao Patil of the Congress, secured 2,24,678 votes.
Nizamabad in Telangana made headlines this year for having 185 candidates contesting from the seat in the Lok Sabha election. While it is the highest number so far this year, it is not the highest ever. It was in Nalgonda in 1996, when there were a total of 480 candidates fighting for the seat.?
BCCL
Nalgonda also holds the unique distinction for debarring the most number of candidates. In 2000, the authorities debarred a total of 444 candidates from the election after they failed to submit the details of election expenditure incurred by them in the 1996 election.?
While Nalgonda may hold the record for the most number of candidates in a Lok Sabha election, but the highest number ever in an Indian election was in 1996, in Modakurichi, near Erode, in Tamil Nadu. A total of 1,033 candidates contested the seat, out of which 1,030 lost their deposit, 88 did not even register a single vote in their tally and 158 got one vote each. The Election Commission had to issue a ¡°ballot book¡± instead of a ¡°ballot paper¡± to record the number of contestants.
How can there be an election in India without Election King' Padmarajan?? Dr. K Padmarajan is a homeopathic doctor by qualification has another record that may never be broken. The 56-year-old resident of Selem has contested 199 elections so far, and unsurprisingly lost all of them.
BCCL
But he is not done with elections yet. He has already filed nomination for his 200th election from Dharmapuri constituency in Tamil Nadu. He also has plans to contest against Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad.
Indrajit Gupta of the CPI holds the record for being the longest-serving Lok Sabha MP. Since 1960 Gupta has been elected to the Lok Sabha 11 times and lost only once -? in 1977.
BCCL
However, former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee holds the record for being a parliamentarian for the most number of times. Vajpayee was a ten-time Lok Sabha MP and a two-time MP from the Rajya Sabha.