In the wake of the entry of women of menstruating age to Sabarimala Ayyappa temple, right-wing Hindu organisations are training their guns on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for his “obstinate stance to destroy the custom of the temple”.
At a meeting of BJP-RSS leaders here on Friday, a decision was taken to strengthen the Sabarimala agitation with Mr. Vijayan as bete noire. “He was instrumental in bringing women to the Sannidhanam [the sanctum of the temple] on the sly. Not even his Cabinet colleagues were aware of what was happening. It is time for a new liberation struggle against him,” BJP State general secretary A.N. Radhakrishnan, who attended the meeting, told The Hindu on the phone.
“Was it necessary to smuggle the women into the temple? Why is it that the CM is so adamant about changing the traditional practices at the temple,” he asked, accusing Mr. Vijayan of hobnobbing with religious terror outfits during his overseas sojourns.
Meanwhile, the Sabarimala Karma Samithi decided to take out a Rath Yatra on January 11, 12 and 13 and a Secretariat march with the support of 120 Hindutva organisations on January 18.
Lamp to be lit
Coinciding with the Makara Jyothi at Sabarimala, jyothi (lamp) will be lit across the State “to safeguard Hindu custom”.
The BJP, Mr. Radhakrishnan said, would extend wholehearted support to the samithi in its agitations. “Look, even the Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran was kept in the dark when those women were sent in. Which shows only the Chief Minister and his cabal of policemen and a few Maoists knew the plan. Mr. Vijayan has to go,” he said.