Will Congress tryst with Lingayats see revival?

BANGALORE: With the exit of Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, the Opposition Congress in Karnataka is seeing an opportunity to regain the confidence of Lingayat community - the largest vote bank in the state - which it lost after unceremoniously ousting late M Veerendra Patil from the CM’s post in 1990.Two decades later, Yeddyurappa emerged an undisputed Lingayat leader and the community completely rallied behind him after the JD(S) failed to keep its word on transfer of power in 2008, and they catapulted the saffron party to power, the first time in south India.Even his detractors within the BJP and outside recognise and accept the kind of clout he enjoys among the community people who constitute around 18 per cent of the total population of the state. This is quite evident from the fact that a majority of the MLAs from the community still support him.“Whatever is said and done, Yeddyurappa is an undisputed Lingayat leader and there is no one of his stature in any party who can command such a clout over the community. Even if the BJP replaces him with Jagadish Shettar, there will be a split among them,” KPCC president G Parameshwar said.“We are going to focus on this area and identify able candidates and leaders at district levels to ensure that we gain their (Lingayats) confidence,” he said, and expressed confidence that Congress would bounce back to power on its own.Sensing Congress move to woo the Lingayats, the anti-Yeddyurappa group has begun a whispering campaign among the Lingayat legislators in the party and Seers of Veerashaiva Mutts that replacing anyone other than a Lingayat will prove detrimental to the party’s future and the community after the outgoing CM started clamouring for D V Sandanda Gowda, a non-Lingayat, as his successor.A senior Lingayat leader in Ananth Kumar group pointed at how the Congress made a similar blunder by replacing Veerendra Patil with Bangarappa. “Had the Congress replaced Patil with Rajashekhara Murthy or some other leader from the community, they would have continued to be with the Congress. But that didn’t happen and Lingayats turned towards the Janata Parivar,” he said, adding that under the present circumstances, the BJP could ill-afford to lose their support base.Replacing Yeddyurappa with another Lingayat would prevent this erosion of vote bank which has rallied behind the party after they lost confidence in both the Congress and the Janata Parivar.