Sabarimala temple closes after annual pilgrimage season

After witnessing unprecedented protests over the entry of women of menstruating age, the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala was closed Sunday marking the culmination of the over two-month-long stormy annual pilgrimage season.

As the temple closed, the BJP ended its 49-day-long relay hunger strike in front of the state Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram, demanding lifting of ban orders and restrictions at Sabarimala, which the LDF government rejected.

While Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Sunday lashed out at the Sangh Parivar and said its Sabarimala stir was a "complete failure", BJP state president P S Sreedharan Pillai claimed it was aimed at protecting the traditional faith of devotees and it had "won in garnering mass support."
Later, when the temple was opened for the annual season on November 17, the situation at Sannidhanam (temple complex), which is around 3.5 kilometre uphill from Pamba, was calm but the state witnessed frenzied protests from the right-wing groups under the aegis of "Sabarimala Karma Samiti."