The CPI(M) and the BJP are digging in on their respective positions and the Congress is out to cash in on the public mood — that is the story in a nutshell as a row rages in the State over the Supreme Court verdict permitting women of all ages to offer worship at the Sabarimala temple.
In the case of the BJP and the Congress, this has also meant that their Central and State leaderships are at odds on the stand to be taken on the historic verdict.
The 2006-11 V.S. Achuthanandan government and the present government led by Pinarayi Vijayan have been consistently supportive of the argument for equal rights to women in the matter or worship at Sabarimala, without being too shrill about it.
In two minds?
However, when the Supreme Court verdict came, the LDF leadership seemed to be on unsure grounds, perhaps on account of being in power with all attendant risks involved, and this resulted in Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president A. Padmakumar speaking out of turn and in a language that was not exactly in sync with the stated position of the party.
Initially, Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran also appeared to be in two minds about the way forward, giving the State BJP and the Congress the opportunity to swoop in.
Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala and several Congress leaders began speaking in as aggressive a tone as the BJP leaders and what one saw in the succeeding days were ‘prayer processions’, with heavy participation by women at Pandalam and other places, with an overlap of the support base of the Congress and the BJP clearly in evidence.
When the SC judgment came, national leadership of both the Congress and the BJP had welcomed it. At the national level, the RSS leadership too welcomed it. However, when the State BJP found that the issue afforded it a good opportunity to mobilise the Hindu faithful, especially women, it chose to ignore the national leadership’s endorsement of the judgment and, possibly with the tacit approval of the party national leadership, launched a spirited campaign against the judgment.
With its cadres at the grassroots becoming restive, the State and national leadership of the RSS, chose to remain silent. Overnight, several outfits with clear RSS links, seeking to ‘protect’ Sabarimala, sprang up at different places and most of the local level processions are being organised by them.
An opportunity?
An article written by the R. Sanjayan, deputy director of Bharatiya Vichara Kendram, an RSS thinktank, in the State BJP organ Janmabhumi , got largely ignored, suggesting that the BJP and the local-level RSS functionaries see in the Sabarimala issue an apt opportunity for mass mobilisation.
How far the Congress would be able to take its campaign over the Sabarimala verdict remains to be seen. Congress leaders contend that had they not jumped into the fray, the BJP would have taken over the scene completely.
That looks true to a limited extent, but in doing so the Congress has also taken a major risk: that of its support base losing its political moorings and becoming vulnerable to appeals from the BJP, thanks to the common cause they seek to espouse at the ‘prayer processions’ on view across the State these days.
For the CPI(M) and the LDF too, the dividends of the Sabarimala debate are uncertain.
The Chief Minister’s combative positioning on the women’s entry issue at his news conference on Monday came a day too late, well after the government bid to open a channel of communication with the Tantri (chief priest) family and the Pandalam palace and explore ways of implementing the SC verdict without creating new hostilities was rebuffed, reportedly following intervention by the Nair Service Society (NSS) leadership.
The NSS leadership has been maintaining good relations with the government, but a souring of relations is clearly in evidence now, giving the Chief Minister, the government and the LDF more cause for worry.
