Last Update: February 18, 2023, 11:51 IST
Congress state working president Ishwar Khandre (Mala) said that giving more representation to Lingayats is a sure way to defeat the BJP in the coming elections. (Twitter @eshwar_khandre)
The state working president said Lingayats have come to the conclusion that the Congress is the alternative and the community has understood the “hidden agenda of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar”.
One of the justifications for this request is that whenever a Lingayat leader has led the Congress, the party has come to power in the past.
In an exclusive interview to News18, State Working President of Congress Ishwar Khandre said that Congress can further improve its electoral chances by giving more representation to Lingayat community candidates in terms of tickets. Khandre believes that this too is a surefire way to defeat the BJP in the upcoming elections.
On a question whether the Congress would consider Lingayats as chief ministerial candidates if voted to power, Khandre called it a “hypothetical question”.
“Anything can happen,” he said, adding that “there are many people from the community in the party who can lead the state in the next government”.
Khandre also emphasized that the “Yeddyurappa factor” would play an important role in the election. “We have seen how the BJP has treated a senior Lingayat leader like BS Yeddyurappa. How they have been sidelined and humiliated. The party has never allowed any Lingayat to reach the top.
The Lingayat community is the largest community in Karnataka and accounts for 17-18 per cent of the state’s voting population. Such is their hold that Lingayat voters play a decisive role in nearly 150 of Karnataka’s 224 assembly seats, while nine of the southern state’s 23 chief ministers are from the community.
Recently, a meeting of senior Lingayat Congress leaders including Khandre, Shamanur Shivashankarappa, MB Patil and Vinay Kulkarni discussed that tickets should be given to at least 60 Lingayat candidates out of 224 seats in the assembly. This was later reported to the screening committee of the Congress, which was meeting to decide on ticket distribution.
Khandre told News18 that Lingayats have come to the conclusion that Congress is the alternative. “Whenever a Lingayat has led the party, the Congress has won the election. We must strike while the iron is hot and this is the right time,” Khandre said.
Being an MLA from Bhalki assembly constituency and a Lingayat himself, Khandre said the community has understood the “hidden agenda of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar”.
“The Congress takes everyone along and that is why many Lingayat leaders from the opposition are joining the party,” he said.
The Congress has been trying to win back its lost support among Lingayats for decades. The party faced the wrath of the community when the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi announced the removal of the Lingayat chief minister, Virendra Patil, in 1990. Despite the Congress coming to power twice since then, efforts to woo the community back have been largely unsuccessful. , The Lingayats later turned to the BJP, which was further strengthened by Yeddyurappa, who is today known as one of the tallest leaders of the community.
Every party in Karnataka is trying to woo this politically influential community, including the demand for a separate religious status, but this demand remains unfulfilled.
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