BENGALURU: With the assembly polls in Karnataka just three days away, the 'Karnataka Lingayita Mattu Veerashaiva Vichara Vedike', a platform of thinkers from the state's dominant Veerashaiva Lingayat community has given a call to the community to defeat the BJP in the May 10 assembly polls.
Though it is one of the many community platforms that has taken a decision to back the Congress party, it has still come as a shock for the saffron party which has had the community's strong backing for decades.
The Lingayat community has been a traditional vote bank of the BJP and since the 1980s, the party leader BS Yediyurappa, who is from the community, has worked tirelessly to develop a Lingayat base.
The Lingayats are a powerful community with 17 per cent strength in the state.
The state has had nine Lingayat Chief Ministers.
This news comes at a time when Sutturu Mutt's head Sri Shivarathrideshikendra Swamiji is abroad and is likely to return only on May 10.
The 'Karnataka Lingayita Mattu Veerashaiva Vichara Vedike' held a press conference here on Saturday and released a letter expressing their anguish against BJP national general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh as he had allegedly belittled the community at a meeting.
B L Santhosh had recently stated that the BJP wants to continue with the Hindutva agenda and no longer has to appease the Veerashaiva Lingayat community. "It has hurt the feelings of the community and if he had not intended to make that statement, he should issue a clarification", said S R Nataraj, senior vice president of the forum while speaking with TNIE over phone. Nataraj is the son of former Karnataka minister Sagaranahalli Revanna and the treasurer of Veerashaiva Mahasabha for which veteran Congress leader Shamanuru Shivashankarappa is the all-India president.
Nataraj expressed anguish against even the RSS as it had allegedly avoided the inclusion of the community in the Central OBC list when B S Yediyurappa was the chief minister of the state. "Yediyurappa wanted to resolve it in his cabinet meeting and send a proposal to the Centre. But overnight, a message came from Nagpur and the proposal was dropped", Nataraj alleged.
The general secretary of the forum, K V Nagarajamurthy, one of the cultural icons of the community, recalled tearfully that the way B S Yediyurappa was removed from the Chief Ministerial post, as well as the snubbing of community leaders like Jagadish Shettara, Laxman Savadi, and Sogadu Shivanna, did not go down well with the community.
Nataraj further added, "The BJP government tried to twist facts about the 12th-century reformer Basaveshwara in the school textbooks while the Congress party has held the community leaders in high respect --- they gave S Nijalingappa, B D Jatti, Veerendra Patil, Rajashekaramurthy, S R Patil, and now M B Patil good posts."
"Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have resisted projecting a community leader as the BJP's chief ministerial candidate, thus betraying the community," Nataraj said.
The followers of Basavanna should vote against the BJP and teach a lesson to 'manuvadis', Nataraj appealed.
The honorary president of the forum, Prof Veerabhadraiah, President Prof Kripashankar, Vice President C A Shivakumaraswamy, and others like Prof Channaveerappa D N, Ahoka Loni, and Shankarappa Bevoora have signed the letter that has been released to the press.
Meanwhile, Congress leaders, Shamanur Shivasankarappa and Jagadish Shetter met the seers of the Lingayat community at Hubbali on Sunday morning.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had visited the Sangamantha temple last week, which is the sacred Samadhi of the Lingayat sect founder, Basaveswhara, also known as Basavanna.
(With online desk inputs)