Travancore Devaswom Board says no to RSS suggestion on Sabari

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) President Prayar Gopalakrishnan who took potshots at RSS senior Pracharak MA Krishnan expressed the hope that his leadership would correct his(Krishnan's) controversial article demanding shortening of the 41- day penance to Sabarimala for equipping entry of women to the shrine.

Krishnan, the founder of Balagokulam, in a recent article in the RSS mouthpiece Kesari said that the mandatory 41-day penance for visiting the holy shrine should be shortened to 14 days. The article came after RSS Sarkaryawah Suresh (Bhayya) Joshi demanded opening of all shrines to women.

Mr Prayar who reiterated that the entry of women to Sabarimala was out of the question said that only the stand of BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan would be considered as an official stand.

Without mentioning Krishnan’s name, he said at a press conference that whoever brought him to his position should correct this stand. “Unlike in the past years, there was absolutely no women presence during the Arattu tradition in Pampa. The awareness campaign by the board requesting women to stay out of arattu was successful. There were around 30 policewomen on the spot who stayed far away from pampa,” Prayar claimed.

“The Devasom’s stand is based on that of Thantris and Melsanthis. Constit-utional bodies should not try to intervene with the traditions of all religions” he added.

Meanwhile, he said that the 60 additional annual casual leave for menstruating women employees of the Devasom board would continue. In a gazette filed earlier, the Devasom board had hinted that it could consider redeploying menstruating employees from temples to the administrative office on specific days.