Driven to the wall, the Left Government in Kerala is seriously considering a proposal to turn over the trouble-torn Sabarimala shrine to a body modelled on the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) in Andhra Pradesh. Sabarimala is south India’s most popular shrine, drawing more pilgrims every year than any other temple in the region, including Tirupati.

Sources said the LDF Government, which has been facing considerable embarrassment over the interminable political spats that have crippled the three-member Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) running the temple, was keen to implement this proposal drawn up by K Jayakumar, Special Secretary for Temple Affairs. The final nod will be given after the Law Department vets the proposal, they added.

The shrine had been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, particularly over the last couple of years. Apart from inviting charges of corruption and nepotism, the governance of the temple commanding an estimated Rs 600 crore worth of assets, had become a big farce with the three political nominees comprising the TDB fighting and openly spiting each other. This was though all three are nominees of the ruling Left parties—TDB chief C K Guptan is a CPI(M) nominee who also happens to be the son-in-law of the late Marxist ideologue E M S Nampoothiripad, board member P Narayanan in a CPI nominee and the third, Sumathikutty Amma, is an RSP nominee.

The bitter power struggle among the three has even had the state leaderships of their respective parties publicly attacking each other, while the temple administration was increasingly going rudderless.