Bommai faces quota, caste census challenges from dominant groups
“We (Lingayats and Vokkaligas) have always been number one and two (in terms of percentage of population) and they (Siddaramaiah) have made it into fourth and fifth,” BS Nataraj, the convener of the forum said.
Bengaluru The dominant communities in Karnataka have started to mobilize support on the promises made by the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) on reservation as well the contentious caste census.
The Vokkaliga-Lingayat-Veerashaiva Sourdha Vedike, a collective group of people from the two dominant communities are holding a meeting on Saturday in Bengaluru to assert their demands not to release the findings of the 2015 caste census report commissioned by the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government.
“We (Lingayats and Vokkaligas) have always been number one and two (in terms of percentage of population) and they (Siddaramaiah) have made it into fourth and fifth,” BS Nataraj, the convener of the forum said.
The statements come at a time when extremely backward and marginalized caste groups have openly demanded that the government don’t accede to the Panchamasali, the largest sub-sect of the Lingayats, who are seeking to be included to the 2A category as well release the findings of the 2015 caste census.
The Panchamasali have threatened to revive their stir post September 15 if their demands of being reclassified into 2A is not fulfilled by the BJP government as promised by former chief minister BS Yediyurappa.
It also leaves Bommai with difficult choices to make as he has to find a middle ground between the two demands as it includes communities who have traditionally backed the BJP and those that the saffron party is actively pursuing to enhance its chances of returning to power on its own in 2023 .
Nataraj said that the state government does not have the powers to conduct such a survey and that it comes under the Centre to do so.
He added that there should be an inquiry on where the Siddaramaiah government spent ₹160 crore which it allegedly claims was the cost of the month-long exercise.
MC Venugopal, the president of the The Athi Hindulida Vargagala Jagruthi Vedike, on Friday said that though everyone in society has the right to demand better reservation status, it can be done so only after the findings are released.
“This report has been made by spending around ₹160 crore of the tax payers money. How can it not be released without even discussing it or knowing its contents,” Venugopal said. The forum has even taken the legal route to get the data released and have secured the backing of former chief minister Siddaramaiah who himself has a lot to gain from mobilising more backward communities under his AHINDA (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) support base. The case is scheduled to come up on September 8.
The Panchamasali had earlier demanded that a member of their community be chosen to replace Yediyurappa as chief minister but the BJP chose Bommai, who is from a smaller sub-sect (Sadar) of the Lingayats, aggravating the community and its seers.
On Friday, Congress leader MB Patil said that they will mobilize support to revive the separate minority religion status for the Lingayats which was initiated just before the 2018 assembly elections.
Siddaramaiah had approved to accord a minority religion status on the Lingayats, which analysts and political leaders said was aimed at splitting one of the biggest support base of the BJP before the 2018 polls. However, the decision to distinguish between Lingayats and Veershaiva, terms which are used interchangeably and also the latter as a sub-sect, had proved costly for Siddaramaiah and the Congress who lost power in the assembly elections.
“After the elections (2023) we will move forward together,” Patil said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters at his palatial home in Sadashivnagar, one of Bengaluru’s most expensive residential localities, he said that there were very poor sections within the Lingayat and its 99 sub-sects and demanded that the community be included under 2A category.
He said that there is no relation between the Lingayat agitation and the Congress.
“There is no middle ground as such for Bommai. It will be more beneficial for the BJP to not antagonize the two dominant communities (Vokkaliga and Lingayats) than the fragmented backward classes,” said one Bengaluru-based political analyst, requesting not to be named.
He said that the backward classes are also not known to support any political party en masse and the BJP stands to benefit from continuing its strategy of backing the demands of the dominant groups and refrain from releasing the findings of the report.