Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is likely to hold talks with the Sabarimala Tantri family and representatives of the Pandalam palace on Monday in a bid to clear the air on the government’s intentions vis-a-vis the Supreme Court verdict in the Sabarimala case.
The Chief Minister’s Office has formally got in touch with the Tantri family and the palace and received a positive response from both. “Our intention is to clarify matters to them,” said top sources in the government when asked about the development.
The talks might take place on Monday morning, if things go as planned. There is no question of the government holding talks with any of the agitating Sangh Parivar outfits or the Congress, the sources said.
The CPI(M) State leadership had prepared the ground for such a talk after an evaluation of the situation by the party State secretariat meeting here on Friday. In a carefully worded statement issued after the meeting, the secretariat had pointed out that the government was duty-bound to implement the Supreme Court verdict and called upon the government to hold talks with all those who were connected with the Sabarimala temple on the best way to do this.
The party secretariat had also made it clear that while every believing woman had the right to go to the temple, it was not the job of the CPI(M) to take women to Sabarimala.
Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran told The Hindu that canards were being spread by the BJP and the Congress about the government’s role in the Surpeme Court verdict. All that the present government had done was to endorse an affidavit filed by the LDF government in 2007 urging the apex court to appoint a commission comprising one or more eminent scholars with deep knowledge of the subject and incorruptible social activists to decide the question of allowing entry for women in Sabarimala.
“The Congress and BJP are distorting this to fish in troubled waters. The Congress does not realise that it is playing a losing game by hanging on to the coat tails of the BJP,” Mr. Surendran said.