Gold's wrath

With the ED stepping in and the SIT probe findings due before polls, the Sabarimala case is becoming the ultimate test for CPI(M) in Kerala

- BY NIRMAL JOVIAL

ON JANUARY 5, after wrapping up the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee’s Lakshya Leadership Summit in Wayanad, All India Congress Committee general secretary K.C. Venugopal’s first comment was not about the party nor about its electoral plans. “The Marxist government has created a situation in which people neither fear God nor have faith, and plunder God's property,” he said. The statement was timely in the wake of a Supreme Court remark—“You did not even spare God” —in the Sabarimala gold theft case and an indicator of the narrative that will dominate the upcoming assembly poll campaign.

The special investigation team has so far arrested nine people, including CPI(M) leader and former Travancore Devaswom Board president A. Padmakumar. It has questioned former devaswom minister and CPI(M) leader Kadakampally Surendran, examined 181 witnesses and concluded that the alleged offences span from 1998, when gold-cladding was first carried out by the UB Group, to September 2025, when the dwarapalaka idols were sent for re-plating. Crucially, scientific tests are under way at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre to determine whether original gold plates were replaced or misappropriated.