Soon after news of the entry of two women into the Sabarimala shrine broke out, BJP Rajya Sabha MP and former Kerala state unit president V Muraleedharan courted controversy and said that the women - Bindu and Kanakadurga - were Maoists.
"The CPM with selected policemen prepared an action plan and then saw to it that the women go inside the temple. This is a planned conspiracy by Maoists in league with Kerala government & CPM," he told the ANI news agency.
Earlier, on Thursday, Muraleedharan seemed to have a different view. He said in a news channel discussion that it is the duty of the state government to provide protection to women devotees in Sabarimala.
The BJP, which supported the bandh organised by the Sabarimala Karma Samiti, has been repeating that the state government cheated devotees in the state after the two women below 50 years of age offered prayers at the shrine.
"There is no issue. I don't say that if women wanted to enter as a devotee and the police gave the protection. It is the duty of the police, it is the duty of the state. And it is the duty of the state to obey the order of the Supreme Court. But here, the issue is not that the women came there on their own and the police gave the protection. It was a planned effort by the police, [sic]" he told the news anchor of CNN News 18.
After that, Muraleedharan contradicted his statement Friday and claimed that the media were twisting his words. He said that he never supported the women's entry.
"Those who report that I supported women's entry doesn't know English. My words were taken out of the context. I welcomed the argument of the state government that it is their constitutional obligation to implement the SC verdict. But I do not agree with that. The Supreme Court allowed the entry of devotees. The government should implement it. But the court did not ask the state to conspire to take non-believers to the temple," he told Malayalam news channel News 24.
This is not the first time that a BJP leader's conflicting statements on Sabarimala have gone viral on social media.
An old Facebook post of Kerala BJP General Secretary K Surendran that supported the entry of women, a BJP MLA's article asking 'why can't women enter Sabarimala' and a statement from RSS leader Bhaiyyaji Joshi supporting the entry are being used by supporters to argue with opponents and have entered the state Assembly.
Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan recently said: "If women can go to space, how can you block them entering a temple?"
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, in an interview with ANI said that the Sabarimala issue is a matter of ritual while triple talaq is of women's rights.