Sabarimala issue: Tanthris, NSS to implead

Thiruvananthapuram:Tanthri Kantararu Maheswaru of the Lord Ayyappa Temple of Sabarimala and the Nair Service Society (NSS) are planning to implead in the case in the Supreme Court relating to a petition filed by a women’s organisation seeking entry for women between 10 and 50 years of age to the hill shrine.

The plan to implead in the case is being made in the context of the Kerala Government’s affidavit in the apex court supporting the efforts for allowing women enter the temple, where women of fertile age are permitted.

There is also a move to make more Hindu and women’s organisations to implead against the petition.

Tanthri Maheswararu, a strong opponent of the idea of allowing women into the temple, said the Government’s statement in the affidavit that the Sabarimala temple was a Buddha Vihara in the past was a direct attack on Hindu sentiments.

He said in a Press release that the efforts to distort history for queering the pitch for changes would prove dangerous.

The issue of Sabarimala was not entry of women but entry of young women, he added.

Women were already being allowed into the temple, but they should not be between 10 and 50 years of age.

Reacting to the statement by CK Guptan, the CPI(M)-nominated president of the Travancore Devaswom Board, in-charge of the administration of the Sabarimala temple that Tanthris should be worrying about their temple jobs and not about issues like women’s entry, Maheswararu said that Tanthris were the competent authorities to take decision of temple affairs.

He said a Tanthri was in the position of the father of the deity and therefore, had all the right to take decisions in matters like this.

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