Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Jul 19: Karnataka minister for women and child development, Jayamala, came out openly in support of the Supreme Court (SC) observation that women have the constitutional right to enter and pray at temples and they need not depend on laws for the same.

The Supreme Court bench, which has been hearing a batch of petitions filed by various individuals and organizations questioning the validity of ban imposed by Sabarimala temple management against entry of women aged between 10 and 50 into the temple premises, had made the above observations. Jayamala said on Wednesday that under the constitution, no difference can be made between men and women. Speaking to media persons here, she said that there cannot be different temples for men and women.

The minister expressed her firm belief that giving preference in offering of prayers to one sex over the other is totally wrong. She confessed that she has been an ardent devotee of Lord Ayyappa, the presiding deity at Sabarimala.

It may be recalled that after a divine astrological query over the Sabarimala temple's sanctity was organized several years back, the astrologers, among other things, had said that a female devotee had entered Sabarimala premises, which had interfered with the sanctity of the temple. Jayamala had then claimed that she was the one who had entered the temple in 1986. After she made this statement, Kerala police had, in 2010, filed chargesheet against her for violating religious traditions.

Jayamala expressed the feeling that everyone is the child of the God and no rules or strictures can wedge a divide between the two.