Thiruvananthapuram: Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac, in an open letter posted on his Facebook page, has posed three questions to BJP state president P S Sreedharan Pillai who had set a 24-hour deadline for the LDF government to change its stand on Sabarimala.
First, he wanted Pillai to respond to another deadline, this one set by VHP leader Pravin Togadia. Togadia gave the Centre 48 hours to issue an ordinance to nullify the Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala. “Togadia had said that BJP leaders should apply pressure on the central leadership for an ordinance,” Isaac writes, and added: "Are you willing to apply pressure, as the VHP leader Togadia said, on prime minister Narendra Modi to promulgate an ordinance?”
The second poser was a sarcastic comment on Pillai's prowess as a lawyer. Isaac said that the Sabarimala issue was under the consideration of the Supreme Court since 2006. “Why didn't your party implead itself in the case,” he asked. He said that among the faithful were those who had deeply wished that Pillai had taken his argumentative skills in the Supreme Court. “I am also sure there would be many in your party who believe that the case would not have been lost had you raised in the apex court the arguments that you now freely hurl during street-corner meetings,” he added.
“Why did you let go of the chance to lay down your arguments before the division bench of the Supreme Court,” he asked. “Are you willing to explain the reasons to the faithful?”
Finally, Isaac reminds Pillai of the RSS's professed stand on women entry into Sabarimala. No other organisation had worked to sensitise people on the need to allow women into Sabarimala than the RSS. “RSS leaders like Bhayyaji Joshi are strong advocates of women entry. It was through Janam TV that Bhayyaji Joshi exhorted the faithful to submit to, and not oppose, the Supreme Court's final order,” Isaac writes. “What is your response to Bhayyaji's stand on women entry," he asked Pillai.
Isaac said an article in the RSS mouthpiece Kesari had described those against women entry as “reactionaries who have not read the writing on the wall”. Isaac helpfully defined a reactionary as someone who opposes social or political reform. “Do you and the leaders of your party fall within the definition of a reactionary,” he asked.
