Differences have appeared in Kerala’s ruling CPI(M) over the objection of the erstwhile royal family of Travancore, once the custodian of the famous Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple at Thiruvananthapuram, to the Supreme Court-instructed examination of Cellar B, second of the six vaults at the shrine in which treasures worth hundreds of billions of rupees are believed to be stored.
VS Achuthanandan, former Chief Minister and the CPI(M)’s senior-most leader, on Sunday said that objections from anybody to the opening and examination of the temple cellar should be viewed with suspicion while the party’s Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran held that there was no ground for any suspicions about the intentions of the former royalty.
Ridiculing the argument of certain members of the former royal family that opening of Cellar B would be against the will of the shrine’s deity, Achuthanandan said, “Some members of the former royalty are speaking as though they had inquired the deity about His will… It is obvious that the issue involved is not the will of the deity but individual interests.”
Responding to the Supreme Court’s July 4 instruction to open the shrine’s Cellar B, Aswathy Thirunnal Gauri lakshmi Bayi, a senior member of the former royalty, had said on Saturday that the family would not allow the move because this was against the will of the deity and the priests of the temple, perhaps the richest Hindu shrine in the world, also were against it.
“There have been no kings here after Independence. For the same reason, the High Court has already made it clear that the former Travancore royalty has no right to claim authority over the temple. That the present administrative body of the temple does not have any member from the family justifies this,” he said in a statement.
However, Kadakampally, Minister in-charge of temple affairs in the State, took a different position on the issue saying that he did not think that the former royalty had anything to hide behind its objection to the opening of the vault. “I don’t feel that the (former) royal family had done anything that affects the temple,” he said in Kozhikode.
Asked about Achuthanandan’s position on the matter, the Minister said, “He could have come across something that justifies his stand. He has expressed his opinion. The royal family also has the right to express its opinion,” the Minister said, adding that he would hold discussions with the members of the former royal family on the matter on Monday.
The Minister said that the CPI(M)-led lDF Government was in agreement with the Supreme Court’s observation that Cellar B should be examined. “Why can’t Cellar B opened when all other vaults could be examined/” he asked. He also rejected the ex-royalty’s argument that an earlier CAG report that the cellar had been opened several times in the past was wrong.
A committee appointed by the apex court had examined the other five vaults at the temple in 2011 and Cellar A, said to be as important to the shrine as Cellar B, was found to hold gold, silver, precious stones, ancient coins, etc whose material value alone could come to over Rs 125,000 crore. Cellar B could not be examined at that time due to the ex-royalty’s objections.
A Devaprasnam, astrological examination, held at the temple in August, 2011 in connection with the matter had concluded that death and destruction could visit upon anybody who tried to open Cellar B. It also prophesied that those who touched Cellar B could die of poison consumption or snake bite.
Meanwhile, a report quoted Adithya Varma, another member of the former royal family, as saying that they would not oppose the examination of the cellar “blindly”. He said the opinion of Tantri, the traditional chief priest, of the temple was supreme in this matter and the family would support his position.