BANGALORE: After badly losing out on poll strategy, the Congress, it appears, is also losing its hold among the dominant Lingayats and Vokkaligas.
This is quite evident in the way in which leaders from these two communities have deserted the party in the last few months.
The party’s caste equations, while distributing tickets, have terribly gone wrong. On the other hand, BJP and JD(S) have kept local caste equations in mind while deciding candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.
Congress has given tickets to five Lingayats and three Vokkaligas, while the BJP and JD(S) have fielded a total of 20 candidates from these two communities.
After the unceremonious removal of late Veerendra Patil as the chief minister, there is a vacuum in Lingayat leadership in the Congress.
The community has been sidelined over a period of time. Now, after finding an able leadership in Yeddyurappa, the community has rallied behind him in particular and the BJP in general. Thanks to the “Lingayat-dominated” government, Vokkaligas have consolidated in favour of JD(S) headed by former prime minister Deve Gowda.
The recent treatment of former chief minister S M Krishna by the Congress high command and its decision not to give tickets to the community leaders in its own bastions like Mysore, Tumkur and Chikkaballapur, have further alienated Vokkaligas from the party.
On the other hand, JD(S) has fielded Vokkaliga candidates in Tumkur, Mandya and Mysore, while putting up a Balija candidate from Chikkaballapur. Balija community is the second largest in Chikkaballapur, after the Vokkaligas. Here too, the Congress appears not to have got the caste equations right, by denying the ticket to M R Seetharam, a Balija leader, by favouring former chief minister Veerappa Moily, who neither has a base there nor any caste support. BJP is keeping everyone guessing and may field a Vokkaliga from Chikkaballapur.
The Congress also doesn’t possess leaders who can wield influence among Lingayats. The last recognised face V Somanna, too is drifting away and inching closer to the BJP.
The situation is no different regarding Vokkaligas. While S M Krishna has been snubbed by not giving him a ticket to contest, other leaders too find isolated and suffocated in the party.
“How can a party survive by neglecting dominant communities – Lingayats and Vokkaligas? There is no future for the party in the state,” former minister D B Chandre Gowda, had told The New Indian Express a few days ago, before he joined the BJP on Thursday.