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Journalism of Courage
Mounting pressure on the Congress, Lingayat leaders in Karnataka have urged the party to field a sizeable number of candidates from the community in the coming Assembly elections. Party sources said the leaders also urged the Congress to consider appointing a Lingayat Chief Minister if voted to power.
Prominent Lingayat Congress leaders, such as former ministers Shamanur Shivashankarappa, M B Patil, Eshwar Khandre and Vinay Kulkarni, met in Bengaluru on Monday, after which they spoke to the Congress screening committee, responsible for selecting candidates, to ensure that Lingayats are fielded in 55 to 60 of the 224 constituencies in the state.
Khandre, the Karantaka Pradesh Congress Committee working president, told The Indian Express that this was needed to strengthen the party. “The Lingayat community is with the Congress. Giving more tickets to candidates from the community will help party prospects in the coming elections,” he said.
The seats where they asked the party to field Lingayats, he added, were spread across different parts of Karnataka. “While there is a sizeable population of Lingayats in North and Central Karnataka, we have also sought tickets for candidates from the community in districts such as Mysuru and Hassan,” he said, adding that the Lingayat population in Hassan was around three lakh.
He said the screening committee representatives had a “positive” response to the request. Currently, 58 MLAs in the state legislature belong to the different Lingayat sects in the state. Of these, 17 are from the Congress. The party had fielded 40 Lingayat candidates in the 2018 Assembly elections.
Lingayats, considered the largest community in the state, form a majority in around 70 constituencies. Their total population in the state is 17 per cent.
While the Congress earlier enjoyed the support of the community, Lingayat voters deserted the party in the early ’90s after the unceremonious ouster of community leader Veerendra Patil from the CM’s post. Thereafter, they backed the Janata Dal for more than a decade. The BJP has largely occupied the space since 2000.
A party leader said: “Declaring a Lingayat as CM candidate could heal the wounds caused by Patil’s ouster and help the Congress gain confidence in the community again.”
In 2018, a section of the Congress leaders had tried to woo the Lingayats by urging that they be declared a separate religious group. However, the Congress leadership had not supported the move.
This time around, as it looks to win over the influential community, the party has called the reservation stir by the Panchamasali Lingayat sub-sect a BJP conspiracy to divide the community.
