TEMPLE GATEKEEPERS LOSE SHINE

Missing gold at Sabarimala, with a priestly bit player at the centre of the intrigue, heats up Kerala

- By Jeemon Jacob

THE BANNER UNFURLED BY THE OPPOSITION in the Kerala assembly, during question hour on October 6, just about sums up the sordid controversy that has kept the state's media in a tizzy the past week or so. 'Ayyappan's gold stolen by ambalam vizhungikal (temple gobblers), it said, not aiming for much subtlety. The dramatis personae of this low piece of drama apparently include Unnikrishnan Potti, a sometime junior priest at Sabarimala temple, one of the most popular (and richest) Hindu religious pilgrimage spots in south India.

The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), the quasi-autonomous body that manages the hilltop temple along with some 1,300 others in the state's southern parts, is not the only entity at the centre of what has become a whirlwind of allegations. The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Front government, which partcontrols TDB, too, finds itself in a soup, with the Opposition Congress and BJP as well as sundry Hindu outfits in the state baying for blood of the Devaswom minister and the TDB president.