Sabarimala gold theft case: CPI(M) claims Congress backed off after Sonia Gandhi’s name surfaced

: Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State committee said the Congress has beaten a hasty retreat on the Sabarimala gold theft scandal after pictures of Sonia Gandhi with the main suspects in the case went viral on social and conventional media. 

CPI(M) State Secretary, M.V. Govindan, said at a news conference held on Sunday (January 25, 2026) that Rahul Gandhi had reprimanded the Congress leadership in Kerala for dragging Ms. Gandhi’s name into the scandal by ill-advisedly seeking to weaponise the gold theft against the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government during the local body campaign. 

“The incriminating photographs showed the prime accused in the case, Unnikrishnan Potti, and the person accused of receiving the temple’s stolen property flanking Ms. Gandhi at her Delhi residence, in the presence of two Congress MPs from Kerala. The incontrovertible evidence in the public domain has put Congress on the defensive”, he said.

Furthermore, Mr. Govindan said the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe has revealed that the Congress-appointed Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) had opened the door for Mr. Potti to loot the temple in conjunction with the chief priest (tantri). 

“The then Congress administration in the TDB deemed that termite infestation had rendered the gold-plate-covered concrete flag staff in front of the temple unstable and ordered its dismantling and reconstruction. The Congress board also allowed the tantri to misappropriate the gold-covered horse idol atop the high mast. The SIT has seized the stolen idol from the tantri’s home”, he said. 

Mr. Govindan said Congress’s attempt to weaponise the Sabarimala gold theft against the LDF government in the Parliament and outside has backfired on the UDF. “Congress MPs gleefully sang Ayyappa ditties parodying the LDF government in front of the Parliament ahead of the local body polls, only to realise belatedly that they got the dirty end of the stick”, he added. 

Mr. Govindan said the Congress-BJP campaign had used the Sabarimala controversy to eclipse Kerala’s strides in development, education, health, and social welfare under the LDF government, to some advantage, in the local body poll campaign. “The same gambit would not pass muster with voters in the Assembly elections. There is no anti-incumbency anger. Voters have realised that at least some of them were taken in by Congress’s lies,” he said. 

He said the Congress was casting aspersions on the SIT’s integrity after the probe reached the doorstep of its leadership. The UDF’s refusal to acknowledge the High Court’s appreciation of the SIT probe was telling.