- V Muraleedharan, minister of state for external affairs and parliamentary affairs, tweeted hinting that Sreedharan will be leading the party as the chief ministerial candidate in Kerala.
- Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, born in Palakkad in British India in 1932, headed the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for 17 years — between 1995 and 2012 — as its managing director.
- Sreedharan, a civil engineer by qualification, was awarded the Padma Vibhushan — the second highest civilian honour — by the government of India, in 2008.
By projecting E Sreedharan, popularly known as the “Metro Man” — a technocrat who earned his cred for executing infrastructure projects with a kind of efficiency rare in India — as the Chief Minister candidate in Kerala on March 4, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may get to make a laudable point but not one that yields a lot of votes.
V Muraleedharan, minister of state for external affairs and parliamentary affairs,
tweeted hinting that Sreedharan will be leading the party as the chief ministerial candidate in the state assembly elections scheduled on April 6. A while later, the minister corrected himself saying that there is no official announcement on it, yet.
It may be too soon to pass a verdict on Sreedharan — the politician, but it may be safe to assume that he would only be as effective as the former Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam or India’s cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar, who was nominated to the upper house of the parliament. He would be a great brand ambassador for the BJP, which may be gaining some ground in Kerala, but is still a distant third in electoral appeal in the south Indian state.
That would explain the reticence of the party’s central leadership with Sreedharan’s candidature, with less than a month to go for the polls.