The principal Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which has strongly opposed the demand for categorisation of Lingayats as a separate religion, has decided to galvanise prominent social leaders within the community to object to it.
The demand by a section of Lingayats for the religion tag, which has been backed by the Congress, has kicked up a storm. The community accounts for a large chunk of BJP’s support base and the party sees this as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s strategy to eat into it ahead of the polls next year. Five Ministers of the Siddaramaiah Cabinet have announced their plans of touring the State to gather the opinion of community leaders and seers.
However, on a cautious note, the BJP has asked its prominent leaders to wait for a couple of days before going public on the issue till it finalises its counter strategy.
“We will soon approach prominent social leaders in the Lingayat community and request them to publicly oppose the demand so that it would lose momentum,” a prominent BJP leader told The Hindu . The issue is set to come up for discussion at a meeting of the State BJP MPs convened by party State president B.S. Yeddyurappa in New Delhi on Wednesday.
According to sources, the party is not unduly worried about the possibility of losing its Lingayat vote base to the Congress as it is of the view that there is no connect between Lingayats and the political ideology of either Mr. Siddaramaiah or the Congress. They also believe that there is not much grassroots support for the demand for a separate Lingayat religion from within the community. “It is only a few fringe organisations that are behind the demand,” a senior leader said.
The party leaders pointed out that such a demand had been made on earlier occasions too, either during the polls or at the time of census. “But soon after, the demand had died down. This time too, we are confident that the demand would take a back seat after some time,” he said.
