Sabarimala: Kerala BJP Chief Does U-Turn on Controversial Speech

Pillai made a provocative speech on Sabarimala made on Monday at the BJP Yuva Morcha meeting held in Kozhikode

File photo of Kerala BJP President Sreedharan Pillai. 

(Photo Courtesy: PTI)

After kicking up a row over his statement that the Sabarimala head priest had consulted him before threatening the closure of the Ayyappa shrine if women of menstrual age entered it, the BJP's state unit chief PS Sreedharan Pillai on Saturday, 10 November, took a u-turn saying someone else in the tantri's (head priest) family had sought his views, PTI reported.

Pillai, who is on a 'Save Sabarimala Rath Yatra' from Kasaragod to Erumeli along with Bharatiya Dharma Jana Seva president Tushar Vallapally, told reporters in Kozhikode that what he meant was that someone in the tantri's family had called him to seek clarification and not the tantri.

Since the head priest has clarified that he had not called him up, there is no need to doubt it, Pillai told PTI.

Kozhikode’s Kasaba police had earlier registered a case on Thursday, 8 November, against Pillai for his controversial speech on Sabarimala.

Sreedharan Pillai has been booked under IPC section 505 (1) (b) - which deals with the intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, or to any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the state or against the public tranquillity. This is a bailable, non-cognisable offence and the case has been registered with the Kasaba police,”

An officer in the Kasaba Police Station told TNM

The complaint was first filed by Shybin Nedumangad, a social worker against Sreedharan Pillai’s provocative speech on Sabarimala made on Monday at the BJP Yuva Morcha meeting held in Kozhikode. In the speech made public by the Malayalam media, Pillai said that the chief of the Thantri family had discussed shutting down of the temple with him if any women between the 10-50 age group entered the sanctum.

“Sabarimala is a golden opportunity. It is an issue. Settling the Sabarimala issue in a straight line is not possible. We put forward an agenda and everyone else surrendered to it, leaving only us and our enemies, the government and its parties,” he said.

Sreedharan Pillai also said that the BJP had planned the entire protest when the temple was opened in October.

“Our BJP secretaries had gone to a (decided) place and carried out what they were supposed to do successfully. When Sreejith IPS went to Sabarimala with two women, it was a Yuva Morcha leader who assembled devotees and stopped them. The outside world doesn’t know all this,”

Sreedharan Pillai, Kerala BJP President

The BJP State President was also heard saying that the temple chief had called him to discuss options of shutting the sanctum sanctorum when women devotees were approaching Sabarimala temple.

According to Sreedharan Pillai, Sabarimala Thantri Kandararu Rajeevaru had asked him if closing the temple would amount to contempt of court.

(With inputs from The News Minute.)