The state’s Congress government has already accorded separate religion tag to the Lingayat community and has put the ball in Centre’s court.
Sending out a firm word on Lingayat separate religion issue, BJP national president Amit Shah assured on Tuesday that the Modi government at the centre will not grant separate religion tag to Lingayats. The issue of grating separate religion status to Lingayat has been at the forefront Karnataka’s political discourse ahead of assembly elections scheduled on May 12.
The state’s Congress government has already accorded separate religion tag to the community and has put the ball in Centre’s court. However, BJP has been categorically rejecting the proposal. BJP chief Amit Shah reiterated the same on Tuesday. He was addressing the gathering of Lingayat and Veershaiva seers in Bagalkot’s Badami.
The seers seem to be divided over the separate religion tag to Lingayat community. Just last week, a top Lingayat seer had asked Amit Shah to do the needful to accord separate religion tag to the Lingayat community. However, Amit Shah said, “I will give you commitment that we will not allow a division of the community as long as the BJP is in power at the Centre, and will also fight against it in future.”
The lingayat community has been a loyalist of BJP, traditionally. The community is socially and politically influential comprising of 17% of the Karnataka’s population.
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