india

Updated: Dec 02, 2018 13:05 IST

As the Bharatiya Janata Party upped the ante on Sabarimala by sending a central team to the state, the Kerala government announced a million women march on the New Year’s Day to prevent the state from “sliding back into medieval madness”.

“Great Wall of Kerala, to prevent the state from sliding back into medieval madness, going to be raised by a million women from one end of Kerala to other on New Year Day. Come, join the Resistance. It will be very, very happy new year,” tweeted Thomas Isaac, the finance minister of Kerala.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, announcing 600-km long Women Wall on Saturday said, “”No one can push back the progressive society of Kerala into the dark ages.” He was speaking after a meeting with over 50 socio-cultural organisations in Thiruvanantha puram, reports PTI.

The meet with prominent caste-based and social organisations, including the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam and others was an attempt by the state government to garner support following the recent protests by right-wing organisations across Kerala over entry of women of all ages in the Sabarimala shrine post the Supreme Court verdict.

“As part of the combined efforts of all these organisations which took part in the meeting, a women’s wall will be formed on January 1 from the northern district of Kasargode till Thiruvananthapuram, to show the country the secular and progressive mindset of the state,” ‘Vijayan told reporters after the meeting.

He also sought support of ‘progressively-thinking” minds of the state to come out and pledge support to the cause in order to safeguard the “secular” fabric of Kerala.

The meeting came on the eve of a four-member BJP delegation’s visit to Sabarimala shrine in Kerala on Sunday to meet people and workers in order to assess the “atrocities being committed against satyagrahis”.

BJP general secretary Saroj Pandey, national president of the party’s Schedule Caste morcha Vinod Sonkar, members of Parliament Pralhad Joshi and Nalin Kumar Kateel are the members of the delegation.

The team will submit its report within 15 days to the party chief, the ruling party said in the statement.

Kerala has been on the boil since the September 28 Supreme Court verdict allowed women of all ages into Sabarimala temple, reversing the shrine’s tradition of barring girls and women of menstruating age—10-50 years.

The Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages the temple, justified the restriction saying the entry of women and girls of menstruating age was against the celibate nature of the deity.

The Supreme Court order was followed by high drama with a few women trying to enter the shrine and devotees blocking their way and tantri’s threatening to quit and shut the temple.

The top court will hear a review petition in the case in January.