It is a common practice to curse the electricity board and the government inside the four walls of the house when there are long hours of power shortages.

But, a forty-six-year-old man, who is a resident of Sullia taluk, Dakshina Kannada district went ahead and called the state power minister, Shivakumar himself and the Mangaluru Electricity Supply Company (MESCOM) engineer incharge and abused them in vulgar language for being responsible for the frequent power cuts and landed in jail.

Sai Giridhar Rai, the accused was arrested by the Dakshina Kannada police on the same day after the MESCOM officials filed a complaint.

“Giridhar, former president of the Bellare Traders Association on Sunday evening around 8 pm called the minister and the MESCOM official and abused them over telephone,” said a source at Sullia police station.

According to the police source, there have been frequent power cuts in the area. “The place faces over 6-7 hours of power outage a day. This man might have gotten drunk and called up the minister and abused him,” he said.

“We had to enter the house through the roof because he refused to open the door,” he added.

Rai was produced before a magistrate and was released on bail on Monday.

There is a shortage of about 2500 MW of power in the state after the recent fire at Sharavathi generating station. In addition, the Raichur Thermal Power Station has been suffering outages due to shortage of water.

Even before the summer could set in, the increase in temperature and the deteriorating water levels before March has already started irking people in the state and if this continues, may be power minister should prepare himself for another “Giridhar Rai”?