With the Supreme Court now scheduling petitions seeking a review of its 2018 verdict permitting women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala hill shrine, the spotlight is now on the CPI(M)’s stand, and the emerging gap between the positions of the party and its government in Kerala.
In September 2018, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had lifted the restrictions that prevented menstruating women from entering the Sabarimala temple. But in November 2019, the top court said the 2018 decision may impinge on the affairs of other religions and subsequently constituted a nine-judge bench to consider the matter. In 2020, this larger bench had held the review petitions as maintainable.
Shifting stances
After the top court’s Monday announcement on the review petitions, Kerala law minister and CPI(M) leader P Rajeeve told the media that the LDF government would “always stand for the protection of faith”. “The government stands to protect the faith of the devotees. However, there is enough time to decide on the stand to be adopted in the Supreme Court. It is a complex constitutional issue and a decision cannot be taken in a minute. This is not a situation to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” he said.
However, earlier in the day, CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan said, “On the Sabarimala issue, the stand of the government and that of the party may not necessarily be the same. The government will always have its own stand.”
The CPI(M) leadership’s position has drawn criticism from the Opposition. The UDF’s Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Assembly, V D Satheesan, said the state government should correct its earlier affidavit in the Supreme Court, in which it favoured the entry of young women into the hill shrine. “Otherwise, the hypocrisy of the CPI(M) will be exposed,” Satheesan said.
BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the latest episode was another example of the CPI(M)-led LDF government taking a “U-turn” on major issues. “Considering the approaching Assembly elections, they (the government) may take any stand. We cannot predict,” he said.
In its recent efforts to revive its image among Hindus, who had long been a traditional vote bank for the Left, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the CPI(M) have drawn closer to Hindu community leaders, besides holding the Global Ayyappa Sangamam summit to mark the 75th anniversary of Travancore Devaswom Board, the state government body that manages the Sabarimala shrine, in September 2025. The Sangamam is also under the scanner of the Kerala High Court over its sponsorship and the use of Devaswom Board funds for the event, which has further put the CPI(M) on the back foot.
Hindu outfits
The Nair Service Society (NSS), an organisation of the upper-caste Hindu Nair community, said it expected the state government to stand in favour of protecting the traditions and rituals at the temple. NSS general secretary G Sukumaran Nair told the media, “There is no change in our stand (against the entry of young women into the Sabarimala temple). We have not got any assurance from the state government. A progressive approach should not be at the cost of faith. We will continue to fight for protection of faith,” he said.
Another prominent Hindu community leader Vellappally Natesan, who represents the Ezhava community, maintained its stance against the 2018 Supreme Court verdict and said the government should rectify its stand. “The government should correct what needs to be corrected. Enlightened women will not go to Sabarimala,” said Natesan, who is general secretary of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam.
The CPI(M) has been pursuing several strategies to retain its Hindu vote base, reaching out to influential community leaders like Natesan, which has even drawn flak from within the Left front.
The BJP has already declared “viswasa samrakshanam (protecting the faith)” as one of its themes for the Assembly elections in the wake of the Sabarimala gold theft scandal, further fuelling its narrative about the CPI(M) being allegedly against devotees on the Sabarimala issue.
Electoral backlash
Initially, in 2018, the LDF government had welcomed the apex court’s verdict, taking the stand that it was “promoting progressive values” and protecting the “renaissance traditions” of the state. Before the end of that year, the state government had begun facilitating the entry of young women into Sabarimala, a decision that had triggered widespread protests among Hindus in the state.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the CPI(M) suffered a drubbing, winning just one of Kerala’s 20 parliamentary seats, in what was seen as the fallout of the Hindu backlash for backing the top court’s ruling.
Though it managed a recovery in the 2021 Assembly polls and returned to power, the CPI(M)-led LDF was again routed in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, winning just one seat – a defeat the party has since attributed to the alienation of Hindu voters following intensive outreach towards the Muslim community over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, among other issues.
The CPI(M) has since backtracked on its Muslim outreach, instead targeting conservative Muslim organisations, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, which it alleges is part of a “nexus” with the Opposition Congress.
In the local body elections last December, the LDF ceded considerable ground to the Congress-led UDF. The LDF’s setback was attributed to the alleged gold theft from Sabarimala, a scandal allegedly involving some CPI(M) leaders. Both the Congress and the BJP have already turned this scandal into their key Assembly election plank against the LDF in the upcoming polls.