Despite having lost the 2021 Kerala electoral race in Palakkad, ‘Metroman’ E Sreedharan lived up to the promise he made to residents of an SC/ST colony in Palakkad. The 88-year-old paid the electricity dues and provided new connections for 11 families in Palakkad’s Madurai Veeran Colony. Prior to the elections, Sreedharan had visited the colony as the BJP’s candidate for Palakkad. Their residents had told him of their demand to get electricity connections. On hearing this, Sreedharan promised that win or lose, he would resolve their woes. Now, he and his wife Radha Sreedharan have written a cheque to the Kerala State Electricity Board this week for Rs 81,500.
“This includes past electricity dues of some of the residents and will also cover new connections for 11 families,” says V Nateshan, BJP’s zonal secretary for Thrissur, Malappuram and Palakkad and the municipal ward councillor of Kunnumpuram ward where the colony is located. While Sredharan and his wife could not directly visit the colony and hand over the cheque, he wrote a letter to a resident of the colony stating that he was enclosing a cheque for the electricity connections. Local BJP leader E Krishnadas then broke the news to residents of the colony.
“They were having electricity problems as one only house had an electricity connection and that line was used to power other houses as well. They got a bill of Rs 1.70 lakh from the KSEB out of which they were able to pay Rs 1 lakh. Sreedharan sir cleared the rest and added the new connections,” V Nateshan explained.
Sreedharan had contested from the Palakkad Assembly constituency and lost to incumbent MLA and Congress leader Shafi Parambil by a small margin of 3,859 votes. While Shafi won 38.06 % of the vote share, Sreedharan managed to win 35.34 %.