Congress MLA climbs poles, cuts electricity to officials' houses over frequent outages in Haridwar

The electricity department filed a complaint against the MLA Virendra Jati at the Roorkee Civil Lines Police Station over the power cuts.

Haridwar: Annoyed by power cuts, Congress MLA Virendra Jati from Jhabrera in Haridwar district climbed electricity poles and cut the power to the houses of three of the department's officials.

The electricity department filed a complaint against the MLA at the Roorkee Civil Lines Police Station over the power cuts.

Among the three whose power connection was snapped was the chief engineer of the power department.

On Tuesday, Jati came to Roorkee with his supporters, a ladder, and some cutting tools.

He first climbed an electric pole outside the official residence of superintending engineer Vivek Rajput at the Boat Club and cut off the electricity connection to his house.

After this, the MLA, with his convoy, reached the official residences of chief engineer Anupam Singh and executive engineer Vinod Pandey, and cut their houses' power connection too.

Jati alleged that there have been unannounced power cuts for five to eight hours a day in his area, causing great distress to the public and significant business loss.

He said he had been raising the issue of power cuts with the department for 10 days, no heed was paid.

Jati said that the officials were in a bad state after just one hour of a power cut, while the public suffered for hours every day without electricity.

The department's complaint against the lawmaker alleged that Jati cut the power lines without a proper shutdown, which could have led to a major accident.

This was not only a violation of rules but also a direct interference in government work, it alleged.