This Narendra wants to be a record loser

People do the bizarre to get into the record books — such as eating glass, sleeping with cobras, piercing faces with needles and running backwards.

But Narendra Nath Dubey’s idea of setting a Guinness record is to lose the most elections.

So he has challenged the better-known Narendra — Modi — in Varanasi under the banner of a lesser known political outfit named Janshakti Ekta Party.

Dubey, 47, is nicknamed Adig meaning resolute. True to the moniker, he has been firm about losing every election since 1984 when he contested Varanasi’s Cheraigaon assembly constituency, which is now Ajagara (reserved).

He has since contested every election from the municipal to the presidential kind, losing more than 40 of them. But his hunger for more losses — despite losing a fortune in deposits — remains insatiable, so much so that he does not vote for himself.

“My sole motive is to get my name included in Guinness Book of World Records for losing maximum elections. This drives me for contesting every election,” says Dubey, proud to have scored zero in the last assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. He has not checked if that is a record. “I am sure it is, since every other candidate destined to lose gives himself or herself a vote,” he says.

A lawyer by profession and social worker by passion, Dubey is excited about sharing his name with the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. The Gujarat chief minister, he feels, will make it easy for him to lose but he expects to get some votes this time for a change.

“Some people might go for a local Narendra, who can do a lot for Varanasi if given a chance,” Dubey says, unfazed by the hype around his namesake as well as Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal.

The ‘habitual loser’ regrets not having been able to challenge Pranab Mukherjee for the President’s job in July 2012.

His nomination papers were rejected as the signatures of 50 proposers — who must be either MPs or MLAs — were found to have been faked.