Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday sought answers from the Congress leadership regarding photographs showing the main suspects in the Sabarimala gold theft case alongside Sonia Gandhi in her high-security residence in Delhi.
He said photographs showed main accused in the case Unnikrishnan Potti and another suspect, Govardhan, a jeweller from Bellary, along with Ms. Gandhi and two Congress leaders from Kerala, Adoor Prakash and Anto Antony, both MPs, in the house.
“Mr. Potti is seen tying a thread on Ms. Gandhi’s wrist, while Mr. Govardhan presents a memento, he added.
Mr. Vijayan said that, given Ms. Gandhi’s known reluctance to provide a personal audience to even senior Congress leaders, it remained a mystery how Mr. Potti and Mr. Govardan, both in judicial remand, could breeze into her house and office, escorted by two MPs.
He demanded that Mr. Antony and Mr. Prakash explain their relationship with Mr. Potti and Mr. Govardhan before calling “comrades temple thieves.”
Mr. Vijayan noted that gaining access to Ms. Gandhi had been perennially difficult for senior Congress leaders. In 2003, he stated that former Chief Minister K. Karunakaran expressed resentment that Ms. Gandhi made him wait for days at Kerala House for an appointment. Mr. Karunkaran quit the Congress in 2005 and formed a new party.
Similarly, Mr. Vijayan said the present Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma left the Congress and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after Ms. Gandhi denied him an audience. “The same rejection of personal audience had prompted the Congress Legislative Party in Arunachal Pradesh to quit Ms. Gandhi’s party en masse and join the BJP,” he added.
Mr. Vijayan noted that Mr. Potti and Mr. Govardhan were “prominent and permanent” fixtures in Sabarimala during the United Democratic Front (UDF) regime. He challenged Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan and Ramesh Chennithala to explain the suspects’ entrenched Congress connections before vilifying the government, which has approached the issue legally and apolitically.
He condemned the Congress-BJP’s “team effort” to politicise the crime.
Published – December 24, 2025 08:26 pm IST
