The state cabinet on 8th March didn’t take a stand on the issue of minority status for the Lingayat community. The cabinet couldn’t arrive at a conclusion on the matter.
A seven-member panel was looking at the issue. Differences were said to have broken out between the Veerashaiva and Lingayat ministers. The panel was headed by retired high court judge HN Nagamohan Das who recommended granting the minority status to the community. The decision has now been deferred to March 14th. The panel was also trying to also study the community’s demand for the status of separate religion.
Ministers such as M.B. Patil, Sharan Prakash Patil, Basvaraj Rayaraddi, and Vinay Kulkarni asked that the CM make the recommendation to the centre. But Eshwar Khandre and S.S. Mallikarjun rejected the idea. The move is being seen as Congress’ strategy to divide the vote bank, as the Veerashaiva-Lingayat votebank has traditionally belonged to the BJP. Khandre and Mallikarjun specifically were opposed to the idea because it might hurt the sentiments of the community.
When the discussion got to an impasse, Siddaramaiah deferred the decision. The two ministers even threatened to resign if the decision was taken forward. Stormy arguments were said to have erupted in the cabinet. Siddaramaiah might be compelled to use this as an effective strategy for the elections. It is unsurprising that such issues will crop up this close to the elections. In this battle for the state, communities are getting dragged into the battle, this is not new and will probably never be. Siddaramaiah has a tough battle ahead of him and so does congress and what happens this year will reflect what will happen next year and that will be a bigger, much larger monster to tackle. This election will do or die for Congress, for sure.