Santosh Murat Singh, a 37-year-old Indian who has been dubbed the "dead man", is set to contest the country's general elections against Prime Minister Narendra Modi this summer. He has been fighting the biggest battle of his life since 2002, when revenue officials declared him dead. Santosh occupies a corner in the vicinity of a popular protest site, Jantar Mantar in the heart of Delhi, with a placard reading "I am Alive". He also enjoys handsome support group in social media.
Santosh belongs to Varanasi, the electoral constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And he is here in Delhi to demand from authorities his rights as a living man.
"No one is listening to me. I tried to seek justice from everywhere. Met chief minister Yogi Adityanath at his residence during Janata Darbar (public grievance redressal meeting), but he failed me. Later, I stoned his vehicle to grab his attention as well. Now I am planning to contest elections to draw the attention of the entire nation to my plight", Santosh Murat Singh told Sputnik.
Santosh draws inspiration from one Lal Bihari Yadav, who after being declared dead by revenue officials in 1976, was announced alive by the Allahabad High Court in 1995 after a tumultuous struggle. Lal Bihari Yadav — President of Uttar Pradesh Mritak (deceased) Association — has been finding suitable candidates like Santosh to contest elections against other prominent leaders of the country, like Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati, and Akhilesh Yadav. While Gandhi heads the opposition Congress Party in India, and Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav have been chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh state.
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"There are approximately 50,000 such cases mostly in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where a living person has been declared dead in official records", claims Yadav. He is on the lookout for more people in India to come out to contest the upcoming polls scheduled with 3-4 months.
According to Santosh, who once served as a cook for Bollywood actor Nana Patekar in Mumbai, "It all began in 2002 when I got married to a lower caste girl from Maharashtra. My relatives and cousins opposed the marriage. I thought things would be sorted out gradually, but after six months, I came to know that in my ancestral village, my cousins, with the connivance of other members of the community, declared me dead, performed my last rites and even managed to get a death certificate from the revenue department. It was then that I realized that the entire drama of opposing my marriage was created just in order to grab the 12.5 acres of land that belonged to me".
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Since then, Santosh has left no stone unturned in his attempt to reclaim his existence. He has sought justice from the courts, police, and even the parliament. Ironically, Santosh's wife, who was the decisive factor in his misfortune, has allegedly left him to pursue a career in the film industry, he told Sputnik.