At the Global Ayyappa Sangamam on September 20, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan did all he could to identify with the Hindu devotee. 

He quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, accepted as a gift an Ayyappa idol and marvelled at the Upanishad verse 'Tat Twam Asi' (Thou Art That) that greets devotees who walk up the 18 steps. Devaswom minister V N Vasavan even read out a letter by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the country's most prominent Kerala basher.   

But not a word was uttered about Sabarimala women's entry, which the Pinarayi government had favoured and had paid the price politically.  

The Congress and the BJP, obviously to sabotage the CPM's endeavour to woo the Hindu community, repeatedly challenged the LDF government to file a fresh affidavit in the Supreme Court objecting to the entry of women in Sabariamala.

The response came three days before the Ayyappa Sangamam. Implicitly stating that there was no need to file a fresh affidavit, the LDF government informed the Assembly on September 17 that it had not revised the affidavit submitted by the Oommen Chandy government in the Supreme Court regarding women's entry to Sabarimala. Meaning, the LDF government had not supported women's entry, had stood by what the Oommen Chandy government had said about the issue.

The Chandy government had revised an affidavit filed by the previous V S Achuthanandan government in November 2007. The affidavit of the Achuthanandan government said it was bound by the 1990 High Court verdict, which upheld the ban on the entry of women between the ages of 10 and 50. 

Nonetheless, the Achuthanandan government made its displeasure with the High Court order clear. The affidavit said that it was not fair to deny a section of women from entering Sabarimala, and recommended the appointment of a "Commission of Scholars" to study the issue of women's entry.

The Chandy government's additional affidavit, submitted in February 2016, termed as "erroneous" and "legally untenable" the assertions made in the affidavit of the Achuthanandan government, and replaced it with a revised one that unconditionally supported the ban on women's entry.

The LDF government's latest statement on the affidavit came in response to a question by Congress's Thrikkakkara MLA Uma Thomas in the Assembly. "Has the first Pinarayi Ministry revised the affidavit submitted by the 2011-16 government on women's entry into Sabarimala?" 

Devaswom minister V N Vasavan's answer: "The first Pinarayi Ministry has not revised the affidavit submitted by the 2011-16 government."

Technically, this is correct. The affidavit was not revised. But on a query made by the Supreme Court, the Pinarayi government, in November 2016, submitted that it was in agreement with the affidavit of the LDF government under V S Achuthanandan. The government said that the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Act, 1965, does not conceive of any kind of prohibition. It took the stand that wherever men can enter, women too can. 

After the 2018 Supreme Court verdict, the LDF government had sought to counter the orthodox backlash by packaging the women's entry as something as profound and radical as the 1936 Temple Entry Proclamation. Chief Minister Pinarayi was projected as the leader of the Second Kerala Renaissance. 

Then, the government, in the Supreme Court, had proudly said that it had supported women's entry into Sabarimala. Now, perhaps desperate to keep Hindus on its side, the LDF seems determined to block out anything that would destabilise its political mission, even if it was once considered bold and revolutionary.