Twitterati slam Shashi Tharoor for his 'unnecessary' comment on Sabarimala

Recently while speaking to News 18, Tharoor, an MP form Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram, said: "the ‘entry’ of the two women was unnecessary"

Tharoor, who had earlier taken positive stands on women's empowerment and human rights issues including gay sex legalisation, made the comment after two women, belonging to the age of mid-40s, entered the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine on Wednesday amid a tensed situation in Kerala.

Video footage of the incident, where two women could be seen entering the temple, has gone viral on social media. The two women were accompanied by a small group of policemen in civil uniform. However, after the women's entry,  the temple was closed for "purification rituals" 

Twitter reacts:

Sucheta De said: "Role of Congress in #Sabarimala episode is shameful. It has unleashed its fake intellectual @ShashiTharoor & organisation against women's entry. @RahulGandhi we don't care what your 'individual' position is. Your party's bigotry is as horrible as BJP here. End the double standard"

Unfollowing the Congress leader, Roopali Srivastava tweeted, " So disappointing. Hard to say what’s worse, the blatant patriarchy of the BJP or this hypocrisy of an apparently liberal intellectual..They’re both defying the SC & denying equal rights to women. It obviously won’t mean anything to him but unfollowing @ShashiTharoor.. #Sabarimala "

Hitting out at Tharoor, user with name Sarthak Bua said: "@ShashiTharoor , i am waiting for the day , when You will condemn Raja Rammohan roy , he is the first culprit to destroy one of the glorious hindu tradition #Hindutva #Sabarimala"

Vinod Nair said: "Can your stop spreading this negativity and do something about the the violence happening in your constituency in @MPTrivandrum #Sabarimala"

Accusing the MP of making a U-turn, user with name eternal optimist tweeted, "@ShashiTharoor takes a convenient u turn, thanks to approaching elections he has to support sabarimala devotees!"

Why is the controversy?

On Sept 28, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had lifted the ban on women's entry into the Sabarimala temple declaring the relevant rules as unconstitutional.

For centuries, menstruating women had been banned from entering the temple in devotion to Lord Ayyappa.   

Following the top court's verdict, the shrine opened on Oct 18 for the first time allowing menstruating women, belonging to the age group of 10 to 50, to enter the temple.

However, several men and women had protested outside the temple, and tried to prevent the entry of women in the shrine.

What Tharoor had stated earlier:

Interestingly, Tharoor, when he came down to Kolkata in November last year, accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of diverting public's attention from real issues by staging protest to block women's entry into the shrine.

He had said: "These issues are deliberately whipped up by certain political interests in order to distract the public from some of the real challenges facing them today in the economy. Ayodhya, Sabarimala, Ram statues are immediate answers to the questions about, for example, extortionate taxes being levied by the central government on every litre of petrol, rise of gas prices, Vyapam scam."

Congress' stand on Sabarimala:

With the elections round the corner and the emergence of BJP in the state, the Congress is singing in the tune of the saffron party in Kerala.

Though Congress president Rahul Gandhi last year urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rise above politics by lending an unconditional support to the BJP in the Lok Sabha on women's reservation bill, the Sabarimala issue has exposed a different stand of the country's oldest party.

On Thursday, when the BJP called for a statewide shutdown, the Congress observed a "black-day" in Kerala, apparently remaining in the same page with BJP on the issue of women's entry in Sabarimala.