Karnataka: Fireworks at Veerashaiva-Lingayat meet

Bengaluru: With the  Veerashaivas and Lingayats failing to  resolve their differences at the meeting on Thursday,  the Akhila Bharata Veerashaiva Mahasabha (ABVM) has decided to constitute an expert committee to look into their demand for an independent religious tag.

“We will constitute the committee in three days and it will give its report in another 10 days, which will be accepted by all. We will all go by the committee’s views on this issue,”  Mahasabha president,  Shamanoor Shivashankarappa said.

The committee will decide the nomenclature of the community for demanding a minority status. 

The four options before it are Veerashaiva-Lingayats, Lingayat Veerashaivas, Lingayats and Veerashaivas.  

While the meeting saw former IAS officer, S.M. Jamdar enter into an argument with  Mr Renuka Prasad, a Veerashaiva community leader,  former police officer,  Shankara Bidari and vice -president of the ABVM, N. Thippanna stressed that there was no difference between the Veerashaivas and Lingayats.

Mr Bidari pointed out that the debate on the status of the two communities was not new as it had been raging  since 1957.

“In 2013 we agreed that we are Hindus. So instead of discussing the differences between Veerashaivas and Lingayats, we need to talk about getting a seperate religious status,” he insisted. 

But Minister Vinay Kulkarni  fiercely argued that Veerashaivas were different from Lingayats and only the latter were eligible for  the separate religion tag, and walked out of the meeting in a huff.  Another point of controversy was Mathe Mahadevi’s statement on the issue. While some at the meeting took objection to it, others defended her.