After witnessing unprecedented protests over the entry of women of menstruating age, Sabarimala temple closed on Sunday marking the culmination of the over two-month-long eventful annual pilgrimage season.

On Sunday, darshan was only for Pandalam palace representative. The temple opened at 5am. After Ganapathy homam, Pandalam palace representative Sree Moolam Thirunal had darshan. After this, chief priest V N Vasudevan closed the doors of sanctum sanctorum and handed over the key to palace representative. As part of the tradition, the representative then gave a bundle of coins to the Devaswom Manager for the next one years’ expense and the key back to the chief priest.

This ceremony that was held at the bottom of holy 18 steps marked the end of the pilgrim season. As the temple closed, the opposition BJP ended its 49-day-long relay hunger strike staged in front of the Secretariat, the administrative hub in Thiruvananthapuram, demanding the lifting of Prohibitory orders and restrictions at Sabarimala, which the LDF government rejected.

While Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Sunday lashed out at the Sangh Parivar and said their Sabarimala stir was a “complete failure”, BJP state president P S Sreedharan Pillai claimed the agitations were aimed at protecting the traditional faith of devotees and it had won in garnering mass support.