BJP’s Sreedharan Pillai Says He Advised Sabarimala Tantri to Close Temple During 2018 Women Entry Row
Former BJP state president P. S. Sreedharan Pillai has said that he advised closing the Sabarimala Sree Ayyappa Temple in 2018 to stop Young women from entering the shrine.
He made this claim in his new book Sabarimala Samaravum Suvarna Avasara Vidhiyum. In the book, he says that the temple’s chief priest (tantri) Kandararu Rajeevaru decided to close the temple after receiving his assurance.
According to him, when activist Rehana Fathima reached Sannidhanam with police protection, he was asked to contact the tantri. A Hindu community leader requested him to give legal advice and explain that closing the temple and performing purification rituals would not be against the court’s order.
Sreedharan Pillai says he told the tantri that the Supreme Court of India judgment did not clearly forbid closing the temple. So, it would not be considered contempt of court. He also said that if arrests happened, he and many devotees were ready to face them.
He claims that this assurance gave the tantri confidence to close the temple and conduct purification rituals when Rehana Fathima approached the temple area.
After the government-sponsored move at Sabarimala backfired, they have now retaliated,” Pillai said, referring to the arrest of the Tantri in the gold loss cases.
He said that immediately after the Tantri’s arrest, he and the BJP had maintained that the law should take its own course.
“However, after studying the case, I realised that it would not sustain, as there was no point in it. The court, after going through the records, found that there was not even an iota of evidence against him,” Pillai said.
He added that the arrest of the Tantri should be an eye-opener.
“The reason did not emerge suddenly but is the result of the stand taken by the party ruling the state over the past several years. The Tantri was jailed for 41 days on allegations of conspiracy, for which evidence could have been produced before the court instead of being arrested,” he said.
Pillai also said that his earlier statement on women’s entry, describing it as a “golden opportunity,” was recognised by the Supreme Court as the basic right of a party state president, and that he has referred to the related judicial proceedings in his book.