There is a word for a party that endorses a Supreme Court verdict that millions of Hindus regard as a desecration of their most sacred pilgrimage, then shelters the man accused of looting gold from that very shrine, and then when election season arrives in Kerala produces campaign videos invoking the name of Lord Ayyappa as though it were a vote-harvesting prop. The word is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy implies some residual shame. What Congress has done with Sabarimala is something colder and more calculated: it is the systematic instrumentalisation of Hindu faith for electoral arithmetic, with no principle beneath it at any stage.
Act One: The Endorsement
When the Supreme Court’s September 2018 verdict allowing women of all ages to enter Sabarimala came down, millions of Kerala Hindus responded with spontaneous, sustained, months-long protest – one of the largest grassroots mobilisations in recent Kerala history. Women formed a 620-kilometre human wall. Devotees blocked approaches to the temple. The message from the believer was unambiguous: this was not a question of gender equality. This was a question of the unique, centuries-old nature of Lord Ayyappa’s celibate form, and the rights of a religious tradition to govern its own practice.
Rahul Gandhi’s response was to endorse the verdict. In December 2020, he stated publicly that all women should be allowed entry into Sabarimala, throwing Congress’s weight behind a judicial intervention that the faithful had already rejected with their feet.
This was the Congress that claims to respect India’s plural traditions; this was the Congress that, when Hindu devotees protest the disruption of their faith, sides with the disruption. The message to the believer was clear: your tradition is negotiable, your sentiment is a lobby to be managed, and your deity’s identity is subject to revision by those who know better.
Act Two: The Gold Theft and the Photograph
Then more recently came the Sabarimala gold theft case. The primary accused Unnikrishnan Potti, a man whose proximity to the Congress ecosystem was not incidental, was photographed in the company of Sonia Gandhi herself on multiple occasions. The photograph does not prove conspiracy.
It proves something nearly as damaging: that the Congress party’s network in Kerala had, at its accessible edges, individuals whose conduct toward Sabarimala was not reverential but predatory. The party that endorsed disruption of the temple’s traditions had, within its orbit, someone now accused of robbing the deity’s consecrated gold. There is a straight line from treating Sabarimala as a political battleground to treating it as a resource to be exploited.
Act Three: The Campaign Video
Now it is March 2026. Kerala assembly elections are approaching. And INC Kerala’s official X account has posted a campaign video, invoking Ayyappa, attacking the incumbent government over corruption at the temple, asking rhetorically why the Global Ayyappa Sangamam was conducted “after looting Ayyappa’s gold.” Congress, the party that told devotees their traditions did not matter, is now posturing as the protector of Lord Ayyappa’s honour. The party whose leader endorsed the dismantling of Sabarimala’s customs now wraps itself in the deity’s name to harvest votes.
അയ്യപ്പന്റെ സ്വർണം വരെ കൊള്ളയടിച്ചിട്ട് ആഗോള അയ്യപ്പ സംഗമം നടത്തിയത് എന്തിനാണ്.. അവിടെയും അഴിമതി നടത്തി. ഭകതർ മിണ്ടില്ല എന്ന് കരുതി ഒന്നു അറിയില്ല എന്ന് കരുതരുത്. പൊതു ജനം കഴുതയല്ല! pic.twitter.com/aVKayRIA62
— Congress Kerala (@INCKerala) March 22, 2026
This is not a pivot. It is not a rethink. It is not even a politically motivated conversion that could be taken at face value. It is a campaign video from a party that has demonstrated, in sequence: contempt for the devotee’s position in 2018-2020, proximity to the accused in the gold theft case, and now electoral opportunism in 2026. Lord Ayyappa is, in Congress’s political calendar, an adversary when his traditions inconvenience the party’s progressive signalling, a non-issue when his gold is being stolen by those in the party’s network, and a mascot when his name can win seats.
The Pattern Is Not Sabarimala-Specific
This is the standard Congress operating model with Hindu institutions. Endorse every judicial or legislative intervention that weakens the autonomy of Hindu religious practice: temple takeovers, entry disputes, festival regulations under the banner of reform. Simultaneously ensure that the party’s Muslim and Christian minority vote banks face no equivalent “reform” pressure on their personal law or institutional autonomy. Then, at election time, pivot back to whichever Hindu symbol or deity is locally resonant and produce content that implies the party has always been on the side of the faithful.
The Kerala Hindu voter watching that INC Kerala campaign video today should ask one question: what has changed? Rahul Gandhi’s 2020 statement endorsing women’s entry into Sabarimala has not been retracted. The photograph of the gold theft accused with Sonia Gandhi has not been explained. The Congress party’s position on the Supreme Court verdict has not been publicly reversed. What has changed is the electoral calendar. And that, for Congress, is sufficient reason to discover that Lord Ayyappa’s gold matters even if it did not matter enough, at any point over the last eight years, to stand with the people who protect his temple.
Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.
