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A prominent Lingayat seer from Dharwad in Karnataka is turning out to be a major headache for Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, and Coal and Mines, Pralhad Joshi. On Monday, Fakir Dingaleshwara Swami, the pontiff of Shirahatti and Balehosur Bhavaikyatha Sanstana Mutt, announced his decision to contest as an Independent from Dharwad, Joshi’s pocketborough.
At a news conference, the seer said that in the 20 years Joshi had been MP, he had been “a zero” when it came to development works and a “hero in subjugating other communities, leaders”. He also asked why the BJP had fielded three Brahmins as candidates across Karnataka — in a reference to Joshi, Tejasvi Surya from Bangalore South and Visveshwar Hegde Kageri from Uttara Kannada — while “ignoring” communities such as Kuruba, Reddy, Jangama and others.
Joshi is seeking to win a fifth Lok Sabha election this time. While three of his four wins have been from Dharwad, one was from Dharwad North, which ceased to exist after the 2008 delimitation.
The declaration by the prominent seer to contest has caused the BJP some jitters. While given that the party has dominated the seat for over two decades, it might still win Dharwad, the optics of the seer joining the race against it raises the prospects of a possible split in the Veerashaiva Lingayat vote, which could give an edge to the Congress.
In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Joshi had won against the Congress’s Vinay Kulkarni. While the margin was 1.11 lakh votes in 2014, Joshi almost doubled it in 2019, winning by 2.05 lakh votes.
The Dingaleshwara seer’s reference to “the role of Joshi in subjugating Lingayat leaders in the region” was seen as a reference to the denial of a ticket to former CM Jagadish Shettar in the 2023 Assembly polls. Shettar contested on a Congress ticket from Hubli-Dharwad Central Assembly segment but lost. While the Congress made him an MLC, he is now back in the BJP courtesy B S Yediyurappa and is now a party candidate from the Belgaum Lok Sabha seat.
Apart from the slight to the tall Lingayat leader, Dingaleshwara also pointed fingers at Joshi for BJP leader K S Eshwarappa’s son K E Kantesh not getting the Haveri Lok Sabha ticket. The party has fielded MLA and former CM Basavaraj Bommai — considered a close aide of Joshi — from the seat. Eshwarappa, a former deputy CM of the BJP, has rebelled and announced he will contest as an Independent from Shimoga.
The seer also raked up the long-standing demand of OBC reservations for Lingayats, with emphasis on Veerashaiva sects. While the seer alleged that both the BJP and Congress have ignored Veerashaiva Lingayats, he singled out the BJP for not giving prominent positions in the Union government to members of the community. “Though nine Veerashaiva Lingayats were elected MPs from Karnataka, none were made Cabinet Ministers. They were only made Union Ministers of State,” he said. He also accused the BJP of turning mutts into political centres to pursue selfish interests.
While the seer has been attacking Joshi for a while now, and set a deadline for March-end for the BJP leadership to drop him as candidate from Dharwad, the BJP leader has tried to deflect the heat saying he considered whatever the seer said a “blessing”.
The mutt Dingaleshwara Swami belongs to is known for upholding the “syncretic culture” of the region. He has backed Yediyurappa in the past, especially when the Lingayat strongman was removed as CM for the second time in 2021. “The BJP will be washed away by the tears of Yediyurappa,” he had said.
