Indore resident Pramanand Tolani has filed a nomination for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly polls after losing 18 times in various elections contested over the past three and a half decades. The 63-year-old real estate business claims that contesting in an election boosts his self-confidence even as he has been losing his security deposit every time. The continuous defeat has earned him the title of "Indori Dharti Pakad." This title draws the name from late Kaka Joginder Singh aka 'Dharti Pakad', from Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly who contested and lost several elections, reported news agency PTI.
Tolani filed his nomination as an independent candidate from the Indore-4 constituency seat for the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections slated to take place on November 17. After filing the nomination, he told PTI, "This will be my 19th election. Before this, I have contested polls 18 times, including for the Lok Sabha, assembly, and mayoral post. The people of Indore are very intelligent. I hope they will definitely make me victorious some time or the other."
Tolani has said that this time if he wins the election then he will ensure complete exemption to the people from property tax on buildings with an area of up to 1,000 square feet, and also in the fee charged by the municipal corporation for door-to-door garbage collection, as reported by PTI.
His family has no political background but they have been famous for contesting elections for the last two generations. However, no member of his family has won any election, rather they lose their security deposit every time they've contested. His father contested different polls for 30 years and his daughter has also expressed her wish to join the family convention.
He also said that once he had even made his wife Lakshmi Tolani contest the mayoral election sd the mayor's post was reserved for a woman candidate at that time.
He told PTI that his father Metharam Tolani, who ran a printing press in the city, had contested various elections continuously for 30 years. He said, "After my father's death in 1988, I started contesting elections from 1989." He added that now the next generation of the Tolani family is also getting ready to enter the electoral fray.
His daughter Nisha (32 years old) while talking to PTI said, "At present, my focus is on my job, but if the need arises in the future, my sister and I will definitely carry forward our family tradition of contesting elections."