Sabarimala gold theft case: CPI(M) claims Congress withdrew after Sonia Gandhi’s name surfaced

: Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] The state commission said the Congress has made a hasty retreat into the Sabarimala gold theft scandal after pictures of Sonia Gandhi with the prime suspects in the case went viral on social and conventional media.

CPI(M) State Secretary MV Govindan said at a press conference on Sunday (January 25, 2026) that Rahul Gandhi had reprimanded the Congress leadership in Kerala for dragging Mrs Gandhi’s name into the scandal by unwisely trying to weaponize gold theft against the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government during the local campaign.

“The incriminating photographs showed the main accused in the case, Unnikrishnan Potti, and the person accused of receiving the stolen property from the temple, standing next to Mrs Gandhi at her residence in Delhi, in the presence of two Congress MPs from Kerala. The irrefutable evidence in the public domain has put the Congress on the defensive,” he said.

Moreover, Mr. Govindan said that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe has revealed that the Congress-appointed Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) had opened the door for Mr. Potti to loot the temple in connivance with the Chief Priest (tqueue).

“The then Congress government in the TDB felt that the termite infestation had made the gold-plated concrete flagpole in front of the temple unstable and ordered its dismantling and reconstruction. The Congress government also allowed the tantri to obscure the gold-covered horse idol atop the tall mast. The SIT has recovered the stolen idol from the tantriis home,” he said.

Mr. Govindan said the Congress’ attempt to weaponize Sabarimala gold theft against the LDF government in Parliament and outside has backfired on the UDF. “Congress parliamentarians happily sang Ayyappa tunes parodying the LDF government in front of Parliament ahead of the local body polls but belatedly realized that they had been given the dirty end of the stick,” he added.

Mr. Govindan said the Congress-BJP campaign had used the Sabarimala controversy to overshadow Kerala’s progress in development, education, health and social welfare under the LDF government, to some advantage, in the local poll campaign. “The same gamble would not go over voters’ minds in the Assembly elections. There is no anger against the incumbent. Voters have realized that at least some of them have been carried away by the lies of the Congress,” he said.

He said the Congress questioned the integrity of the SIT after the probe reached the threshold of its leadership. The UDF’s refusal to acknowledge the Supreme Court’s appreciation of the SIT investigation was telling.