KOZHIKODE: Sangh Parivar has decided to focus on the upcoming Lok Sabha election campaign. They are set to prepare for the elections in the south Indian states by raising the Sabarimala issue. The campaign in Kerala will be led by NDA. The party will stage more protests over Sabarimala, however they have decided to lower the intensity of such protests. This is in order to bring more party members for election work.

RSS leadership has also decided to abandon the protest in front of the secretariat that was scheduled to be staged on January 18th. Ratha Yatra to be staged in 10 districts will also be postponed.

Deftly, the RSS has turned into a political confrontation by accusing the CPM government of Pinarayi Vijayan of being responsible for the violent reaction to the verdict. “Unfortunately, the Kerala government has taken steps to implement the judgment with immediate effect without taking the sentiments of devotees into consideration. There is an obvious reaction to the same by the devotees, especially women, who are protesting against the forceful breaking of the tradition,” Joshi said.

The RSS-BJP has found natural allies in the upper caste organisations that still hold sway in Kerala more than six decades after it made history as the first state to elect a communist government. From the Kerala Brahmana Sabha (KBS) and the Tantri Mahamandalam (a collective of the priestly class) to the Nair Service Society, the upper caste have banded together to force the CPM government’s hand. These organisations have filed review petitions in the Supreme Court saying it had erred in calling the restrictions on women at Sabarimala a gender discrimination issue pertaining to menstruation. The court, they maintain, is not “whether the practice in question is an essential aspect of Hindu religion” but whether the impugned practice is an essential aspect of the Sabarimala temple… “The Court has completely ignored the diverse practices, traditions and schools which exist within the Hindu faith.”