BENGALURU: In a bid to woo the dominant Lingayat community voters ahead of a series of elections in the state, including taluk and zilla panchayats and the Assembly polls early next year, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Tuesday appointed former minister M B Patil as chairman of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee campaign committee.
While the party seems to be taking senior leaders from all major communities into confidence, Patil’s appointment is also seen as an attempt to win over the Lingayats, who had strongly backed the BJP under B S Yediyurappa’s leadership.
Sources in the party said appointing a senior Lingayat leader from the North Karnataka region as campaign committee chairman will help send out the right message to the dominant community, that too at a time when the BJP seems to be finding it difficult to keep its support base intact.
Patil, who is considered close to former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and held important portfolios including Water Resources and Home, will be working with the former CM and state Congress president D K Shivakumar to prepare the party’s campaign strategy. In 2018, Patil’s name was doing the rounds for the post of state unit president.
“I will do my best and work in close coordination with the PCC president, CLP leader and all other senior leaders,” Patil told The New Indian Express. After the party’s relatively good performance in the recent elections, including the Assembly bypolls and elections to 25 Council seats, the mood in the Congress camp is upbeat.
“People are disgusted with the BJP rule. They are very unhappy and they remember five years of the Congress government headed by Siddaramaiah as it gave stability and people-oriented development programmes,” said Patil.
In the run-up to the 2018 elections, the Congress was accused of attempting to divide the Veerashaiva-Lingayat community by demanding separate religion status for the Lingayats. Patil was among the senior Congress leaders who were at the forefront of that movement which proved counter-productive for the party in the elections.