In the span of a fortnight, the ruling BJP and the principal Opposition Congress have sought to send strong signals to appease the politically strong Veerashaiava-Lingayat community. On Wednesday, the BJP nominated the former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa to the party’s Parliamentary Board and the Central Election Committee. Earlier, the former AICC president Rahul Gandhi underwent ‘Linga Dharana’ procedure at Murugha Mutt in Chitradurga.
While the BJP is trying to assuage the community’s feelings by inducting the sulking Lingayat strongman over a year after he stepped down as the Chief Minister, allegedly under duress, the Congress seems to be making amends over its move to support a separate Lingayat movement in 2017 that apparently did not go down well with the community ahead of the last Assembly elections.
Though a good number of the Veerashaiva-Lingayats are believed to be with the ruling BJP currently, the Congress is trying to appease the politically dominant community to wean away those “undecided voters” from the saffron party with the elections to the Legislative Assembly about eight months away. The political optics is coming in the midst of demand for inclusion of Veerashaiva-Lingayats in the central OBC list by the All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha, and the demand for 2A reservation by Panchamshalis — a powerful sub sect — that has put the BJP in a spot.
Big caste-based block
Politically, the importance of Veerashaiva-Lingayats can be gauged with as many as 58 legislators out of the 224 elected in 2018 elections being from the community, making them the largest caste-based block. Of the 58 (not taking into account subsequent bypoll results), 38 belonged to the BJP, 16 to the Congress, and four to the Janata Dal (Secular). “The community has a say in electoral politics in as many as 135 constituencies. If in North Karnataka the community is dominant where political opponents are from the same community, in South Karnataka, the community’s swing will be decisive on the election results,” claimed the mahasabha secretary H.M. Renukaprasanna.
The Veerashaiva-Lingayats believe that their political clout has been curtailed since the 2008 elections that were conducted after the delimitation exercise. A list compiled by the mahasabha shows that 22 constituencies that were represented by Lingayat legislators earlier were either reserved or subsumed. On average, 70 Lingayat legislators were elected in every Assembly before 2008 with the highest of 90 Lingayat legislators in 1967. The lowest number of Lingayats in the Assembly was in 2013 when an angry Mr. Yediyurappa formed the KJP to contest against the BJP, resulting in 48 Lingayat legislators being elected.
“Parties stand to gain by a Lingayat swing in reserved constituencies too because of their numbers. This is especially true in North Karnataka. In South Karnataka, where Vokkaligas are pitted against each other in at least 20 constituencies, the considerable number of votes of Lingayats become decisive. The Lingayat leadership is not about galvanising and consolidating the community where they are dominant in North Karnataka alone,” a senior Lingayat leader in the Congress observed.
Interestingly, as per data collated by the mahasabha, the BJP won about 43% of the total reserved constituencies in 2018, winning 15 out of 35 constituencies reserved for the SCs and seven out of 16 reserved for the STs. In contrast, the BJP — affected by the KJP factor in 2013 — had about 16% of the total reserved seats, winning seven SC reserved constituencies and one ST reserved constituency.
The southern factor
The leader pointed out that constituencies with considerable Lingayats were in Tumakuru, Hassan, Mandya, Chamarajanagar, Ramanagaram, and Mysuru districts where such undercurrents exist but are normally not in the mainstream political narrative. “Lingayat consolidation in the South need not be in favour of the BJP that is weak in Old Mysore region or the Congress, but can go in favour of the JD(S) too, depending on the political circumstances. After the demise of M. Rajashekar Murthy and B.B. Shivappa, no Lingayat leader has emerged from the South, and the ambit of a pan-Karnataka Lingayat leadership would include Lingayats of the South,” Mr. Renukaprasanna pointed out.
