(source : ANI) ( Photo Credit : ani)
President Droupadi Murmu will visit the Sabarimala temple on the last day of the Thulamasa Pooja, Tuesday, Oct 22, as part of a two‑day trip to Kerala that ends on Oct 24. She will travel to Thiruvananthapuram and Kottayam, where she will attend a series of public programmes.
The Sabarimala shrine reopened on Oct 17 for the monthly Thulamasa Pooja, a key worship ritual managed by the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB). The temple gates closed again on Oct 22, pausing until they open in November for the Sree Chithira Attathirunnal festival.
The visit comes amid a hot‑button investigation into gold‑plated copper panels that once covered the Dwarapalaka idols at the temple. The panels were taken away in 2019 and 2025 for restoration work in Hyderabad and Chennai, but reports say they were mishandled and their weight and gold content were not as recorded.
TDB Vigilance recorded a statement from Unnikrishnan Potty, a former helper and the sponsor of the gold‑plating work, after a three‑hour interrogation at the TDB headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram. Potty left the building without answering media questions clearly. When pressed, he said, “Don’t I have freedom as an individual? The truth will prevail,” adding that the matter would eventually go to the High Court.
TDB President P.S. Prasanth said the board will seek permission from the Kerala High Court for a thorough investigation of the entire sequence of events, from Vijay Mallya’s 1998 gold plating to the 2025 incident. “We will request the court for a full probe, covering the gold shortfall, doubts about the gold, and all related controversies,” Prasanth told .
The controversy flared again when the Kerala High Court ordered that the gold‑plated panels be returned immediately and criticized TDB for not following proper procedures or notifying the court‑appointed Sabarimala Special Commissioner.
Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have called for statewide rallies from Monday onward, demanding a High Court‑monitored Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the alleged irregularities. The protests underscore a growing public demand for transparency and accountability in the management of the Sabarimala temple.
Source: aninews
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