Metroman E Sreedharan to join Bharatiya Janta Party soon

Kasaragod, Kerala (Urban Transport News): India's Metroman and Padma Vibhushan Dr. Elattuvalapil Sreedharan (E. Sreedharan) has decided to join  Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and end his practices for urban transport development in the country.

His decision to join politics was conferred by Kerala state BJP chief K. Surendran in a press conference on 18th February 2021. He will join BJP ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections.

In a recent interaction with a newspaper, Sreedharan said:

It is not a sudden decision. I have been in Kerala for the past decade and wanted to do something for the state. I alone cannot do things. BJP is different and that's why I joined the party. I will focus on BJP centric activities.

He will officially join BJP during the Vijaya Yatra, a rath yatra in Kerala ahead of the state assembly polls. The BJP is launching the Vijaya Yatra with an aim to expand its footprint in the southern part of India. The Rath Yatra will be launched on 21st February 2021 from Kasaragod and will culminate at Thiruvananthapuram around the first week of March.

88 years old Sreedharan is known as the technocrat behind India's first state-of-art and ambitious metro rail project in Delhi. He was the first Managing Director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and most of the network of Delhi Metro was expanded during his tenure.

Sreedharan retired as chief of DMRC on December 31, 2011. However, he has remained Principal Advisor of Delhi Metro and other metro rail projects i.e. Jaipur, Lucknow, Kochi etc. in India.

He was appointed as a principal consultant by J&K Govt. for the development of metro rail projects in Jammu and Srinagar. He was also rendering consultancy for the proposed Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram Light Rail projects. 

Sreedharan was awarded the Padmashri in 2001 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2008 by the Govt. of India.