Congress seeks to implicate CMO in ‘wrongful arrest’ of Tantri in the Sabarimala gold theft case

Congress on Sunday (February 22, 2026) sought to implicate Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office (CMO) in the “wrongful” arrest and incarceration of Sabarimala Tantri (Chief Priest) Kandararu Rajeevaru in the Ayyappa temple gold theft case.

Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said the CMO had scapegoated the Tantri to insulate former and present Devaswom Ministers, as well as the former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president, P S Prasanth, from prosecution. 

Mr. Chennithala relied on the court’s granting bail to the Tantri last week to make his case against the CMO. Quoting the order, he said the court concluded that the SIT had “submitted nothing on record or an iota of evidence to establish any positive involvement of the petitioner (Tantri) in the alleged irregularities”.

Mr. Chennithala said the court also observed that the Tantri had no role in “the repairs, maintenance and upkeep” of temple property, and that the chores were entrusted to the hierarchy of TDB officials.

 “The high court-appointed SIT, after a phase, had backslidden into the CMO’s control. The SIT arrested Tantri under political pressure to deflect attention from CPI(M) apparatchiks involved in the crime”, he said. 

Mr. Chennithala said the court order seemed to indirectly endorse Tantri’s plea that the latter was the victim of a political witch hunt. He said the Tantri had argued in his bail plea that the government had an axe to grind against him because he had opposed the entry of menstruating women into the temple, and threatened to close the sanctum sanctorum to protect temple tradition, after the Supreme Court allowed women, irrespective of their age, to worship at the temple in 2019. 

Law Minister Rajeeve countered that it was a question for legal experts to decide whether a trial court hearing a bail plea could opine on the merits of the case, especially when the High Court division Bench, which directly oversaw the SIT, expressed confidence in the investigation’s current trajectory. 

Excise Minister M B Rajesh said Congress was silent on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sreedharan Pillai’s statement that he had advised the Tantri to oppose the entry of women and close the sanctum sanctorum, despite the risk of contempt of the Supreme Court. He said, Tantri had no “special privilege” under the law. CPI(M) State Secretary said the Tantri remained a prime suspect in the case.