BJP rakes Lingayat row to consolidate community votes

Faced with tough fight from the Congress-JD(S) combine, the BJP appears to be raking up the politically sensitive Lingayat religion issue with an intention to consolidate the community votes in its favour in north Karnataka, where the second phase of election is scheduled for April 23.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his public rally at Bagalkot on Thursday hit out at the Congress for what he called attempt to split the community for the sake of its survival. It has come close on state BJP president B S Yeddyurappa accusing Congress leader Sonia Gandhi of orchestrating the separate Lingayat religion movement last year.

The BJP’s move is seen as an attempt to again rake up the Lingayat issue and corner the Congress, which paid a heavy price in the last year’s Assembly polls for supporting separate religion tag for Lingayat (Basava tattva) dharma. The Congress’ defeat in last year’s Assembly polls was mainly attributed to the Lingayat issue. Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar had been tendering open apology in order to assuage the hurt feelings of the community.

The saffron party is heavily banking on Veerashiva/Lingayat community to achieve its goal of winning 22 of the 28 Parliamentary seats in the state. The party candidates in eight of the 14 seats in the second phase belong to the community, which is dominant in north Karnataka. Veerashiva/Lingayats form about 17% of the state’s population.

Though Veerashiva/Lingayats are traditionally seen as the BJP supporters, the party poll managers are worried that anti-incumbency being faced by many of the sitting MPs belonging to the community might spoil its prospects. Seven of the sitting BJP MPs are Lingayats. Besides, the Congress-JD(S) alliance, too, has fielded Lingayat candidates in five seats – many of whom have strong influence over the community in their respective constituency.

Keen contest is on the cards in four constituencies - Bidar, Bagalkot, Belgaum and Chikkodi, where candidates of both the parties are Lingayats. “We cannot take the community’s support for granted. When both the parties have fielded Lingayats, the community voters normally choose the “good” candidates, irrespective of the party affiliation,” the BJP poll managers said.

Moreover, the BJP fears the repeat of Bellary bypoll held in November last year. It is said that Lingayats supported the Congress in the bypoll after Shivakumar, who is also Ballari district in charge minister, tendering an unconditional apology. Hence, the BJP has now decided not to take any chance and launched an offensive against the Congress on the issue.