Sangh in tangle on temple date
■ No. 2 says 2025, RSS asserts that’s not right
In a desperate bid to keep the emotive issue of Ram Mandir lingering ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the RSS on Friday had to issue a clarification after its second-in-command Bhaiyya Joshi’s remarks on setting a new deadline for the temple, was perceived as a jab at the Narendra Modi government.
Both the RSS and Mr Joshi had to later assert that he had not said, a day earlier, that the temple construction would begin in 2025 but had said that its construction should begin now so that it is completed by the time next ‘Mahakumbh’ takes place in 2025.
The Sangh parivar affiliated ‘Dharamsansad’ of saints and seers are likely to announce some “major announcement” during their meet starting on January 31 in Prayagraj, the venue of ongoing Kumbh Mela.
With the crucial Lok Sabha polls just around the corner, Mr Joshi’s remarks at Prayagraj on Thursday at an event setting a new deadline of 2025 led the political circle abuzz that the RSS had “lost hopes” that the temple would be construction in the BJP regime.
For the past few months, the RSS-led Sangh Parivar had been building pressure on the Modi government to start the construction of the temple, with the VHP setting the deadline of recently-concluded winter session of Parliament for a legislation or an ordinance on the issue.
The list submitted by the LDF government in the Supreme Court, claiming that 51 women aged less than 50 had darshan at Sabarimala temple this season, has triggered a controversy following discrepancies related to age and gender.
Discrepancies came to light when media persons cross-checked the list of
51 young women. Some of the young women on the list were actually above
50. But the most glaring misrepresentation was the case of Paranjothi, 47, who was listed as a female, 21st on the list.
TV crew traced out Paranjothi. He had gone to Sabarimala along with a group of 16 men. “I’m no woman, I’m gents (sic)”, he told the TV channel.
DC checked on mobile number 9844366613 given against the entry of Ms Gowri Arumugam, 49, from Chennai, on the list of 51 young female devotees.
The number belonged to Mr Rajesh, a businessman, residing at Rajaji Nagar in Bengaluru. “I am distressed by so many calls. I am not Gowri. I was part of a 22-member group that booked online for the darshan. We had darshan on December 20. There were four women in the group and they were all above 50 years,” Mr Rajesh said.
Many other numbers were switched off, possibly after the controversy surfaced. Reporters contacted a few others on the list, which was submitted by the government to show more young women had darshan. Many numbers on the list were those of men who had registered for darshan online on behalf of women devotees. In such cases, the women devotees could not be contacted individually to cross-check.
While the government says the errors could have crept in while feeding the information digitally, many say the authorities should have verified the details before submitting the list to the Supreme Court.
Earlier at a press conference, Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran said that 7,564 women had registered online for Sabarimala darshan. The reports received from the “Virtual Queue” system indicated that women in the 10-50 age group visited the temple.
We have no information whether all managed to have darshan at Sannidhanam,” he said.
One Vasanthaiyya said his relative had gone to Sabariala but her age is
59. Sreeramulu from AP said his relative Ramadevi, 54, visited the temple. Kalavathy Manohar of Vasco in Goa, whose name figured in the list, she is 52. Similarly Hyderabad resident Padmavathy informed a section of media that she was 53 and her age on the Aadhaar was wrong.
However, in the affidavit submited in the court, the government stated: "It is submitted that a total of
7,564 women in 10-50 group had also registered for darshan and as per the digitally scanned records around 51 women in this group have already visited the shrine and had darshan without any issue.