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HomePoliticsPanchamasali Lingayats ramp up quota stir with padayatra to Belagavi — 'Bommai...

Panchamasali Lingayats ramp up quota stir with padayatra to Belagavi — ‘Bommai didn’t keep word’

The community, which gets 5% reservation, wants to be included in category of OBC communities getting 15%. Panchamasalis are the biggest sub-sect within Lingayats who back BJP.

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Belagavi: Led by Sri Jagadguru Basava Jaya Mrityunjaya Swamy, the Panchamasali community intensified quota agitation Thursday as hundreds of people marched towards the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha where the winter session of the Karnataka legislature is underway.

The people marched along the Belgavi-Kolhapur national highway from Savadatti to Belagavi, waving flags in support of the demand to include the community in category 2A of the list of Other Backward Castes (OBCs).

“We have already reached a decisive phase in our agitation. The CM had given his word that the reservation would be announced by 19 December and because he did not live up to it, I have started this padayatra (foot march) to Belagavi where we will have a massive convention,” the seer said Thursday.

“If the CM announces reservation after discussing with his cabinet, we will congratulate him else we will say ‘Har Har Mahadev’ and lay siege to the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha.”

The Panchamasali is the biggest sub-sect within the dominant Lingayat community who traditionally back the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). From the 5 per cent quota it enjoys under category 3B, the community wants to be under 2A which will get them a share in the 15 per cent reservation.

With the state going to the polls in a few months, the community’s influence cannot be overlooked as it is considered to be BJP’s core voter base in northern Karnataka.

Leaders like BJP legislator Basanagouda Patil (Yatnal) had boasted that the delay in announcing reservation was the reason Bommai was handed a defeat in the last year’s Hanagal assembly bypolls in his home district.

“Why was Bommai giving us false promises? He said that all formalities will be completed by the 19th (December), but nothing has happened. Our next course of action will depend on the announcements of the chief minister,” Yatnal, one of the prominent political leaders, spearheading the agitation against his own government, said in Belagavi.

In a related development on Thursday, Karnataka Permanent Backward Classes Commission chairman Jayaprakash Hegde handed an interim report on the Panchamasali community to the chief minister in Belagavi.

“The interim report has been submitted and we will have legal discussions on the same at the earliest, convene an all party meeting and an appropriate decision will be taken,” Bommai said in Belagavi.

The BJP government had used the absence of caste-census data to delay announcements but failed to convince the agitating communities including Vokkaligas, Valmikis and Kurubas. Similar quota demands by these communities have put Bommai in a fix given the electoral compulsions.

“I have been with the Panchamasalis all through and there is no question of me opposing it (reservation demands). Today or tomorrow, we have to do it and the CM is thinking of implementing it. Until then, the seer must remain calm,” senior BJP leader B.S. Yediyurappa said.

The former chief minister is still considered one of the most prominent Lingayat political leaders and the BJP needs the community’s help to retain power. In Karnataka’s deeply caste-based political culture, dominant communities are seen to be backing particular political parties who use them to their advantage.

While the Vokkaligas, found in large numbers in the old Mysuru region, back Janata Dal (Secular), the Congress has its votebank among minorities, backward classes and Dalits among other sections.

(Edited by Tony Rai)


Also Read: BJP eyes Vokkaliga votes with Kempegowda statue, but here’s why Bengaluru may not owe him origin


 

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