Lakhs of women stood in vigil holding ‘Ayyappa Jyothi’ (lamps) along a 765 km-long road, linking the north with the south of Kerala on Wednesday, in a show of solidarity with the perpetuation of rituals and traditions at the Sabarimala temple.

It would have been a show of strength by the Sangh Parivar and the BJP-NDA, had its ally, Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) — the political outfit of backward and numerically strong Ezhava community — not boycotted the event.

‘A grand success’

BJP State President PS Sreedharan Pillai, while speaking to newspersons here on Thursday, claimed that the Ayyappa Jyothi vigil was a grand success.

BDJS President Thushar Vellappally said the party chose to skip the event because it was not an NDA programme. But he said it was wrong to assume there was no BDJS presence.

What seemed to have enraged the BJP-NDA was the BDJS President’s comment that the party would not mind participating in the Women’s Wall (Vanitha Mathil) initiative, a grand show of strength by bete noir CPI(M) on New Year’s eve.

The Ayyappa Jyothi vigil by the Sangh Parivar and the BJP was planned to counter the CPI(M)’s effort (Vanitha Mathil) to support the Supreme Court order allowing entry to women of all age groups to Sabarimala.

Massive Mobilisation

This massive mobilisation is being planned ahead of the election year by the Sangh Parivar and the BJP-NDA, and the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government. The LDF State committee seemed to have fired the first salvo by expanding the LDF through the induction of four fringe parties.

These include the Kerala Congress (B) of veteran Balakrishna Pillai and actor son B Ganesh Kumar, both former ministers. Pillai is also the leader of the Nair Service Society (NSS), a strong votary of status quo at Sabarimala.

Pillai has since voiced support to the Women’s Wall to the chagrin of the NSS, generating brownie points for CPI(M) strongman and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who has invested political capital into the Women’s Wall.