Onam pookkalam with saffron flag comes up near Kerala temple, 27 RSS workers booked

Police said the Kerala High Court has banned the use of political symbols and flags within a radius of 100 metres from the temple, and in 2023, the court rejected a petition seeking permission to raise saffron flags near the temple.

“However, on the eve of Onam, the RSS workers and sympathisers arranged a flower carpet near the main way to the temple. Along with that, they had also designed a pookalam similar to the saffron flag and a flex of Chhatrapati Shivaji barely 50 metres away from the temple. This was done without the permission of the temple committee. They had given assurance to the committee that no RSS symbol would be used for pookkalam,” the police said.

“Along with this pookalam, they had written ‘Operation Sindoor’ with flowers. Nobody has complained against writing ‘Operation Sindoor’ with flowers. The complaint is only against designing the RSS flag…,” the police said.

Persons linked to the RSS have been fighting for control of the temple for many years with persons linked to other groups. It has also witnessed violent incidents, and the matter reached the Kerala High Court, which in 2020 directed police to remove all installations/flags/festoons associated with political parties and organisations from the temple premises. In 2023, a section of devotees had approached the High Court, seeking relaxation in the earlier verdict, but the court rejected their petition.

Referring to the pookalam case, the BJP’s Kerala president, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said Saturday, “The police action against the Operation Sindoor pookkalam is shocking. Is Kerala under the Pakistan regime or ruled by the Jamaat-e-Islami? It is for the first time in India that police are registering a case on charges of making an Onam pookkalam. By registering a case for having written Operation Sindoor with the Onam flower carpet, who are the government trying to appease?”

He also asked why the temple committee, the members of which are associated with the CPI(M) and the Congress, is afraid of Chhatrapati Shivaji. “They should not forget that they are running a Hindu temple,” he said.

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