eNarada, Bengaluru, Monday, August 14, 2017
BJP has finally opened up over the raging Lingayats VS Veerashaiva controversy by saying it won’t support a separate religion for Lingayats.
During a press conference on Monday, BJP national chief Amit Shah said that a separate religion for Lingayats was a political conspiracy hatched by the Congress and BJP won’t support it. By saying so, Mr Shah put an end to the BJP’s silence. His statements assumes significance as not even a single BJP leader including the tallest Lingayat leader BS Yeddyurappa had kept mum over the whole issue.
Earlier, during an informal chit chat with the editors of Bengaluru’s newspapers, Mr Shah said that when the saffron party was projecting Lingayat leader BS Yeddyurappa as its chief ministerial candidate, it didn’t expect any set back over not supporting Lingayat religion.
Sources said that while Congress was trying its best to break the unity among the Lingayats by encouraging them to go for a separate religion, BJP leaders believe that many in Lingayats are upset over the great divide. In fact, many Lingayats and Veerashaivas are hurt over the way their community is being divided by political leaders for votes and they may end up supporting the BJP which wants to unite all the sub-castes of the Lingayats and Veerashaivas. In fact, with many of the Veerashaiva Jagadguru are against a separate Lingayat religion, BJP’s trump card of Lingayat unity may favour the party.
However, with a series of Lingayat rallies planned in north Karnataka over separate religion and the recent statement of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah over supporting the new religion, now one needs to see if the disunity among Lingayats helps the Congress or the BJP!
