Sheila Dikshit enters Padmanabhaswamy temple wearing socks; devotees annoyed

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Governor Sheila Dikshit has been accused of sacrilege on her visit to Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple on Thursday. The new governor entered the temple wearing socks.

Devotees said that Sheila Dikshit’s act amounted to deity’s insult and asked the governor to remove socks. However, the executive officer of the temple Col Bhuvananchandran Nair said that the governor had sought permission of wearing socks to the temple in advance.

“She had sought permission to wear socks when I went to meet her at the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday. I then consulted the priests and they were fine with it,” Mr Nair said.

The executive officer said he had also informed Dikshit that she will have to remove socks before she enters the ‘ottakkal mandapam’, single granite stone slab abutting the sanctum sanctorum. “She complied with our request. Before entering ottakkal mandapam, she removed socks,” Nair said.

However, some devotees said that the governor was asked to remove socks by the devotees present in the temple. “What I heard was that she was asked to remove socks by some devotees present near the seevelippura and she complied,” said an historian M G Shashibhooshan. “She maybe following the customs of North Indian temples like Akshardham in Delhi, where devotees are allowed to wear socks inside the temple,” he added.