Its now her cup of tea!

ERODE: Till last week, she was just serving tea to customers at her shop. From now on, she will be serving all in the locality through the civic body.Meet Kasthuri, the newly-elected AIADMK councillor from Ward 41 of Erode Corporation, who runs a tea shop near the diesel loco shed on Chennimalai Road.“I have been running the shop for the past three decades, ever since I got married. It was owned by my father-in-law. I prepare tea and also do other work in the shop,” she told Express. Her husband Ganesh was a cashier in  a medical shop, while her son Jayachandran is in Class 11. Kasthuri defeated three-time councillor Geetha Kathirvel (DMK) with a margin of 1,080 votes. “I became an AIADMK member 15 years ago and a ward representative in the party five years ago,” she said. Even after being officially declared as the party’s candidate for the councillor post, Kasthuri continued to serve tea at the shop, seeking votes from customers, besides taking up door-to-door campaigns in the ward. However, it was Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s schemes that yielded rich dividends in the poll, she observed. “A major problem here is lack of drinking water for all houses in the three-storeyed blocks of TNSCB at Stoney Bridge. There is just one water tap at the ground floor. My first priority is to arrange Corporation water for each house,” Kasthuri said.“Intrusion of rain water, flowing in the Perumpallam canal, into huts located on both side of the canal is another problem.  The hutment dwellers want parapet walls constructed along both sides of the canal to prevent this. Now, I will give priority to that. Also, many of their children are not going to school. My priority is to send them to school,” she said. “Though I have been elected, I will continue to run the tea shop for my livelihood, as usual,” she added.