Religion tag for Lingayats was an error of judgement: Vasanthkumar

KALABURAGI: Asserting that the previous Congress government led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made an error of judgement expecting to garner the Lingayat votes by recommending independent religion status for the Lingayat community, KPCC General Secretary A. Vasanthkumar admitted on Wednesday that the Congress paid a heavy price for its decision in the just concluded Assembly election.

In a candid interview, Mr Vasanthkumar expressed the view that the Siddaramaiah government should have maintained a distance from the Veerashiva-Lingayat issue instead of playing an active role in supporting proponents of Lingayat religion. 

“As the issue of granting independent religion status is a socio-religious issue, the government should not have got directly involved in it. It should have either taken a neutral stand or left it to the purview of a commission or the courts. As there is a lot of political awareness in the community, which is dominant in the North Karnataka region, the (Siddaramaiah) government dug its own grave by raking up the issue", the Congress leader remarked.

According to Mr Vasanthkumar, the government's action, instead of helping the Congress cause, seriously harmed its chances by helping consolidate the Veerashaiva Lingayat votes against the Congress in a big way. 

“Before this move, the Congress used to get a good share of the Veerashaiva-Lingayat votes in the constituencies where both BJP as well as Congress candidates were Veerashaiva-Lingayats. But in this election, the Veershaiva-Lingayat vote almost went en masse against the Congress. This led to the defeat of many Congress candidates including prominent Lingayat leaders such as Vinay Kulkarni, Basavaraj Rayareddy, Dr Sharanprakash Patil and others. The swamijis of Veershaiva maths, who wield considerable clout, actively campaigned against us. Though religious heads of Lingayat maths supported us in the election, they did not actively campaign for us. This seriously affected our chances, though the Siddaramaiah government gave good governance and launched many welfare schemes", he observed.

Mr Vasanthkumar was also of the view that Siddaramaiah's bid to corner JD(S) leaders H.D. Deve Gowda and his son Kumaraswamy led to the consolidation of Vokkaliga votes in favour of the JD(S) in the Old Mysuru region.