The opposition of the United Democratic Front led by Congress required the resignation of the Minister of Devaswom VN Vasavan and Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) President Psanth, who accused them of defending them “spirit”.
The opposition leader VD Satheesan said that former Minister Devaswom Kadakampally Surendran and former President TDB A. Padmakumar could not get rid of responsibility for facilitating “corruption and crime” focused on the temple.
Mr. Satheesan said that between 2019 and 2025, TDB allowed the former assistant of the Unnikrishhnan Temple to remove valuable gilded covers from the temple seemingly for repair and reconstruction at workshops in Hyderabad and Chennai.
However, Mr Satheesan said that the vigilance of TDB found a significant weight mismatch between the original panels and those who returned after the expected renewal in 2019, under the supervision of Mr. Surendran and Mr. Padmakumar.
Mr. Satheesen said that Mr. Vasavan and Mr. Prasanth ignored the red flags raised in 2019 and closed Mr. Potti to carry more gold panels outside the temple for reworking in 2025.
“There was sufficient evidence in the public sphere that shows that Mr. Potti will learn around religious objects around religious objects for private worship. Thiruvananthapuram,” he said.
Mr. Satheesan said that Sabarimala’s temple artifacts have an infinite emotional value for the devoted Ayyapp. They feared that someone could replicate the original gilded panels in another metal to steal the original plates for their immense religious value. The government owed Ayyapp’s devoted explanation.
In addition, he said that the “mystification classification” of the TDB panels was earmarked for repair in 2019, because pure copper begged the question of what happened to the original golden coverage installed in 1999 at the command of Vijay Mallay.
The workshop, which renews panels in 2019 and 2025 under the auspices of Mr. Potti, testified that the panels submitted for repair were made of pure copper without gold in metal.
“Mr. Potti claimed that TDB certified him metal transmitted as a pure copper. Only the investigation of the Central Investigation Office (CBI) will only bring the truth.”
Meanwhile, the leader Bharatiya Janata (BJP) PK Krishhnadas said that thousands of devoted Ayyapp would be siege of the official residence of the main Minister Pinaayan Vijayan on Tuesday to push their CBI request.
Published – 4 October 2025 20:01
