Are all castes equally Hindu, asks CPM

CHENNAI: CPM state secretary P Shanmugam on Saturday criticised BJP state president K Annamalai’s comment that Tirupparankunram hill belonged to Hindus, asking whether the claim applied to all Hindus or only to specific caste groups.

In a post on X, Shanmugam asked whether Annamalai would support allowing Scheduled Caste Hindus to enter the sanctum for worship if the statement indeed referred to all Hindus. He said invoking the term “Hindus” without addressing longstanding inequalities amounted to misleading people.

Shanmugam accused the BJP of attempting to exploit religious identity for political gain and said such statements ignored the lived realities of caste-based discrimination in temple access.