CPI(M) State secretariat recommends reconstitution of TDB amid political scandals ahead of Sabarimala season

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretariat on Friday recommended the reconstitution of the arguably beleaguered Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), seemingly bedevilled by the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple gold-plated panel misappropriation scandal, ahead of the Mandala-Makaravilakku pilgrimage season commencing in mid-November.

The CPI(M) move assumes political significance amid the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bid to exploit the controversy to stoke public indignation against the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in the run-up to the local body polls and the Assembly elections in 2026.

CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan denied that the decision aimed to blunt opposition criticism in the crucial election year. “The TDB’s term has ended. It is legally untenable for TDB president P. Prasanth to continue in the post. There is no need to read any hidden meanings into the decision,” he said.

Mr. Govindan denied that the government had backpedalled from issuing an ordinance to extend the term of the TDB, fearing that Kerala Governor Rajendra Arlekar would turn it down. 

(Notably, BJP State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar had written to Mr. Arlekar requesting him to decline any such request, given the scandals dogging the TDB.)

Mr. Govindan termed news reports that the government had contemplated issuing an ordinance to grant Mr. Prasanth an extension as a figment of the media’s feverish imagination.

“There was no such deliberation at any point in time. The decision to name a new TDB when the existing one’s term expires is routine. The CPI(M) ‘s decision is no reflection on Mr. Prasanth, as sections of the media have made out. Mr. Prasanth had executed the tasks given to him with due diligence and merit,” he added. 

Mr. Govindan stated that the media had speculated in vain about who would succeed Mr. Prasanth. “None of the names you (journalists) bandied about as prospective TDB president are true,” he said. 

’New board soon’

Devaswom Board Minister V.N. Vasavan, who attended the State secretariat, said the government would announce the when Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan returned from Kuwait.

Mr. Vasavan and Mr. Prasanth, along with their respective predecessors, have remained the central focus of the opposition campaign against the government. Congress and BJP have accused them of misplacing the trust of Ayyappa devotees and opening the temple’s coffers for pilferage.

Moreover, the Congress and the BJP also sought to retard the momentum of the LDF-sponsored Global Ayyappa Sangamam, in which the TDB brought on board major Hindu social organisations, using the temple theft scandal as a foil.