VIJAYAPURA: Former Minister and senior Congress leader MB Patil said that they will resume the Lingayat movement demanding a separate religion status tag in the name of Basava Dharma.
Patil is the first to speak about the Lingayat moment after the assembly elections. Lingayat issue was one of the reasons for Congress losing in many seats in the recent assembly elections.
Speaking to the reporters here on Monday, Patil said, "As many Lingayat leaders were busy in the election process and formation of new government, the agitation was paused. The moment will kick-start as soon as after a month. JD (S) leader Basavaraj Horatti too will also join the moment. This time we will intensify the agitation."
The leaders and experts will commence a meeting in regard to restarting the movement for demanding a separate religion tag to the Lingayat community. But this time the approach will be different, with the team conducting a detailed research at grass-roots level about the life of Basavanna and the early days of Lingayat Dharma.
"After the completion of the research work educative conferences will be held to explain about the birth of the Lingayat religion to the people across the state," said MB Patil.
"This agitation or the moment will strongly continue until we get a positive result. It is cent percent that the we will put an end to this after we getting a separate global religion status tag as a Basava Dharma similar to Buddhism. But we will still remain as Hindus."