Daijiworld Media Network - Thiruvananthapuram (SP)

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 3: The agonizing wait coupled with bated breath for the winner of Kerala government's lottery Onam bumper prize worth eight crore rupees for 2016 is over. The man has put a stop to speculations on this issue, and is now in front of the people in flesh and blood.

As per Manorama News, Ganesh from Palakkad, working for an automobile workshop, has won this prize. Ganesh, it is learnt, has been working for a two-wheeler workshop at Cherpu, Thrissur, since a decade. It is said that after buying the ticket from a lottery vendor near Ayyappa temple at Kuthiran, he had gone to his home in Nemmara on holiday. When reporting back to work, he had forgotten the ticket at his home. He had no time to check the lottery result and compare it with the ticket in his possession as he was too busy. On Saturday, he could verify the result and found to his surprise that he had become very rich all of a sudden.

After it came to light that Johnson and Johson, a lottery ticket agent located at Saktan Nagar in Thrissur had sold the prize winning ticket, and the vendor had no idea to whom he had sold the ticket, and no one came forward to claim the prize, various rumours had spread like wild fire. While some said that a driver from Tamil Nadu had won the prize, some others claimed that the was burnt or torn by the family inadvertently. As such, there was every possibility that like in many past cases, the money would have been retained by the government if nobody produced the winning ticket bearing No. TC 788368 and claimed the prize money.

As per reports, the claimant has already deposited the ticket along with other papers as per rules, in State Bank of Travancore's Nemmara branch for collection of bumper prize. It is not yet known as to what Ganesh plans to do with the prize money.