With the Lok Sabha polls on the anvil, the Panchamasali Lingayat Reservation Agitation Committee has planned to re-launch an agitation through its mega convention in Kalaburagi on March 12, to press for its long-pending demand for inclusion under Category 2A and bringing all Lingayat sub-castes under central OBCs list.
Committee president Basava Jaya Mrutyunjaya Swami of Kudalasangama Panchamasali Peeth told presspersons in Kalaburagi on Wednesday that even after the 712 km-padayatra across the State and performing “Ishtalinga Pooje” on highways in the last three years, the government had ignored their demand.
He said that, along with a delegation of Lingayat legislators, he had met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah during the winter session in Belagavi in December last year. Mr. Siddaramaiah, who had assured them of holding a meeting within a week had failed to respond even after three months, he alleged.
Claiming that the caste census submitted by Jayaprakash Hegde, Chairman for the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes, was unscientific, he alleged that the caste census was a conspiracy to show that the population of the Lingayat community was negligible compared with others.
“We too have conducted the survey based on voters’ data through a private agency. The population of Lingayat Panchamasali is around 1.10 crore in Karnataka,” he said.
He warned that the Committee would intensify its agitation if the government failed to fulfill the long-pending demand of inclusion of Panchamsali Lingayats into 2A category.
On March 12, the political leaders, cutting across party lines, would participate in the convention at Sharanabasaveshwara Jatra Maidan in Kalaburagi city, he said.
Prior to this, a bike rally would be organised across the district on March 10.
