The Oommen Chandy cabinet had a fortnight back forwarded to the Governor H R Bhardwaj a proposal seeking amendments to the statutes of three temple boards to make it mandatory for the Hindu MLAs to declare that they are believers for participating in the election of the nominees to the temple boards from their electoral college.
The Government is apparently compelled to bring in this clause as the opposition LDF has more Hindu MLAs than the ruling coalition.
Inaugurating the protest, CPI(M) veteran V S Achuthanandan said the Government's move was clearly "unconstitutional" and amount to depriving the MLAs of their rights.
Under the constitution, an MLA could take oath either in the name of God or take solemn oath. The promulgation of the ordinance would deny the MLAs of their constitutional rights, he said.
The CPI(M) leader also attacked the government's move to abrogate the clause in the law which ensured reservation for women in the temple boards, as legislated by the previous LDF government.
The amendment would mean that even the CPI(M) and CPI MLAs would have to declare that they "believed in God" in case they want to force a contest for choosing one nominee each for the Travancore, Cochin and Malabar Deveswom Boards, which manage most of the temples across the state.
As per the statutes, the Hindu legislators could nominate one member on each board and the remaining two members for the respective boards are chosen by the state cabinet.
The Government has been under pressure to re-constitute three Deveswom Boards next month, especially the Travancore Deveswaom Board, as the annual pilgrim season of the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple is to begin in mid-November.