Responsible for rallying the Lingayats before the assembly election, Congress leader MB Patil said in an interview with Arun Dev that the community has seen through BJP’s hidden agenda of using them to gain power and then discarding them. He said the BJP did not have a plan to make Basavaraj Bommai the chief minister; instead they wanted RSS leaders like BL Santhosh and Pralhad Joshi to take the post. Edited excerpts:
You have said that the homecoming of Lingayats has begun, but for decades Lingayats have been a faithful Bharatiya Janata Party vote bank.
In 1989, when Veerendra Patil was Karnataka pradesh Congress chief, we had a historic win of 176 seats. During this time, the highest number of Lingayat MLAs were elected from the party. But in the 1990s, Veerendra Patil suffered from a stroke and the party was left with no option but to replace him. There was a huge propaganda that Congress removed a Lingayat chief minister, hiding the fact that he was unwell. This led to the Lingayat votes to move to the Janata Party and later to the BJP.
But then, what did the BJP do? They used Yediyurappa to do unethical things like Operation Kamala (poaching of MLAs). Once the government was formed, he was removed from power. When Congress removed Veerendra Patil, he was ill, but what was the reason for removing Yediyurappa? He was healthy.
The real reason for removing Yediyurappa is the real agenda of the BJP. They wanted to replace Yediyurappa with someone like BL Santosh or Pralhad Joshi. Bommai is an accidental chief minister. He was made chief minister after there was a protest from the Lingayat community and the Veerashaiva Mahasabha.
{{/usCountry}}The real reason for removing Yediyurappa is the real agenda of the BJP. They wanted to replace Yediyurappa with someone like BL Santosh or Pralhad Joshi. Bommai is an accidental chief minister. He was made chief minister after there was a protest from the Lingayat community and the Veerashaiva Mahasabha.
{{/usCountry}}The BJP continues to insult a tall leader like Yediyurappa. When the BJP formed its election campaign committee, Yediyurappa was made just a member. Yediyurappa is keeping quiet for the sake of his son’s political future.
After that, they removed Lingayat leaders like Laxman Savadi and Jagadish Shettar. If they claim it is because of age, people who are older than them have been given tickets. So, within the BJP there is an agenda against tall Lingayat leaders and the community has realised that the BJP used the Lingayats to gain power and is now trying to implement its agenda. So, homecoming of Lingayat voters to Congress will begin from this election.
Unlike Yediyurappa, Laxman Savadi and Jagadish Shetter are not mass leaders of the Lingayat community.
Savadi belongs to the Ganika community. In my district (Vijayapura), Savadi is a mass leader in at least six constituencies. In about 20 constituencies in this region, people of the community are there and he is the tallest leader now. Shettar is from the Banjiga community, the community traders. They are already upset about the financial situation and insult to their tall leader will result in votes changing.
But the BJP says if Congress cares so much for Lingayats, why haven’t they announced a Lingayat chief ministerial candidate?
In our party, if leaders like Veerendra Patil, BD Jatti or Nijalingappa were made chief minister, it was done after calling a meeting of the legislative party and the decision is taken based on the opinion of the legislative party members. But the BJP is putting out a farce by saying they would make a Lingayat chief minister It is just an attempt to mislead the Lingayat community.
BJP argues if Lingayats vote for Congress, they will get a Kuruba CM in Siddaramaiah or a Vokkaliga CM in DK Shivakumar.
Who said that? When Narasimha Rao was Prime Minister and the Congress had come to power in Karnataka, even though it was believed that SM Krishna would become the chief minister, the party decided to make Veerappa Moily the chief minister. So, as the BJP says, nothing is fixed. Have we announced that we will make Siddaramaiah or DK Shivakumar the chief minister?
Does that mean you are also a chief ministerial candidate?
Apart from Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar, there are many leaders who are capable of becoming the chief minister of Karnataka. I am there. Then we have Parameshwara, RV Deshpande, Ramanlinga Reddy and a youngster like Krishna Byre Gowda. So, who will be chief minister will be the decision of the legislative party and the high command.
In the last election, Congress appealed to the Lingayat community by raising the issue of separate Lingayat religion. It backfired in the election. Is it still an election issue?
If you look at the strike rate, out of the 47 Lingayat fielded, 19 have won. Compared to all communities that contested from the Congress party, Lingayats stood second in the number of seats won. We were trying to bring all Lingayat communities under one umbrella. In the past, Sikhs and Jains were given similar statuses. I don’t want to bring up the issue once again, but our attempt to was to unite Lingayats. Now the BJP has created so much division that each community is protesting and demanding reservation.
Do you think the Bharatiya Janata Party increasing reservation for Lingayats will help it?
What have they done? They announced something, but when the matter went to court, it stayed the decision. At the same time, what did they [BJP] do? They took 4% [quota] from Muslims and gave Lingayats 2%. Lingayat community’s philosophy teaches inclusive development. We don’t believe in snatching from others.