Wittingly or unwittingly, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has set the Congress on a collision course with the Lingayat community in Karnataka. The Government’s brash handling of the Panchamsali Lingayats’ agitation and the community seer’s call for intensifying the movement indicates that it could cause more bad blood.
The Panchamsali, a numerically strong sub-sect in the Lingayat community, is in the 3B OBC category with a 5 % reservation in education and employment. They are demanding inclusion into the 2A category which would give them access to 15 % reservation. Basava Jaya Mruthyunjaya Swami, head of Kudalasangama Panchamsali Peeta, is heading the movement.
Images of protesters bleeding after being caned by the police, who stopped them from entering the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha premises in Belagavi earlier this week, could haunt the Congress for a long time. As things stand now, it seems highly unlikely that there will be any drastic change in the way its leadership is handling the sensitive issue.
Indicating the government’s stand on the issue, the CM termed the demand unconstitutional. Home Minister G Parameshwara defended the lathi charge and rejected the demand for a probe and action against police officials. The administration accused the protesters of pelting stones leaving many policemen injured.
The issue rocked the ongoing winter session of the state legislature in Belagavi. Members from the Opposition and ruling parties engaged in heated exchanges over the administration’s handling of the protest. Congress may have matched or even outdid the BJP during their heated exchanges in the assembly, but its problem is way beyond that.
Failure to deftly handle the agitation and the hardline stance subsequently could pit the community against the party. Much of that could have been averted had those in power anticipated the situation and made enough efforts to defuse it before it took a violent turn leaving many protestors and policemen injured. It is obvious that they either failed to read the situation or handle it delicately.
The government may have limitations and reasons for not making any commitment to considering the Panchamsalis’ demand. Also, the challenge is to do justice to one community without causing injustice to others.
Members of the Karnataka State Backward Castes Federation have urged the CM not to consider the Panchamsali community request as it would undermine those communities in the 2A category of reservation benefits. The Federation even warned the CM of launching statewide agitation if the government considers Panchamsalis’ demand.
Congress lawmakers from the Lingayat community seem concerned over the stand taken by the government and the community leaders. Senior Congress leader and legislator Laxman Savadi’s impassioned call for MLAs from ruling and opposition parties to work together to resolve the issue showed their predicament.
Savadi, a former Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP government, who joined Congress before the 2023 assembly polls said that all of them including the CM are in favour of providing reservation for the community. He suggests that they should work together to explore the possibility of finding a way to utilize a certain percentage from the 10 % quota for the Economically Weaker Section [EWS]. The senior Congress leader even apologized, on behalf of the government, for the unsavory developments.
Savadi comes from the Lingayat-dominated North Karnataka region and is keen on sending a message that they are not against the community’s demand. However, the firm stand taken by the CM and the police action seem to be putting leaders like Savadi in a tight spot.
The Congress has been making efforts to woo the Lingayat community and it would be wary of antagonizing them. In the 1989 elections, the Congress won 178 out of 224 seats, but after Veerandra Patil’s unceremonious removal from the CM’s post in 1990, the party suffered a humiliating defeat in 1994, winning only 34 seats.
Any misstep in handling the Panchamsali agitation could be a setback for Congress’s efforts to win back the community’s full support. The only respite for the party is that there are no major elections now. It may not be a significant issue in the upcoming local body elections, as they are mostly fought on local issues and candidates’ direct rapport with voters.
But, if the movement is sustained, it could have an impact on Congress. The community is firm on continuing the agitation till its demands are fulfilled. The Panchamsali seer is demanding the CM to apologize to the Lingayat community and take action against the police officials.
The seer claims that before the assembly polls Siddaramaiah, through his followers, assured them of considering their demands but had changed tack after coming to power. “Our agitation will continue till we have a CM who will consider our demands,” the seer declared, making it clear that the community is in no mood to budge.