After Vokkaligas, Lingayats come out in open against caste survey

After the Vokkaligas, the Lingayats, another major community in Karnataka, are pressurising the Congress government in the state to implement the reservation allotted for them. Further, they want the government to reject the state's caste survey report.

Separately but with a joint motive, Vokkaliga and Lingayat leaders are putting pressure on Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ahead of the Lok Sabha elections next year.

The Lingayats voted in large numbers for the Congress during the assembly elections in May this year, and this was one reason the party picked up many seats in the North Karnataka region. Naturally, Siddaramaiah is said to be worried over the Lingayat demands.

The Veerashaiva Lingayat Mahasabha is expected to formally reiterate its demands over the weekend at a two-day convention in Davanagere, around 265 km from Bengaluru. The gathering is likely to demand that the caste survey conducted in the state earlier be dropped because the Lingayats feel it is flawed.

Embarrassing Congress

This of course pits the two communities against the current thinking in the Congress, whose leaders including Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Siddaramaiah have vowed to implement the caste survey report.

Vokkaliga leaders including seers and politicians from all parties have already submitted a letter to the Chief Minister not to implement the report. Ironically, one of the signatories is Deputy Chief Minister and Congress leader DK Shivakumar, a prominent Vokkaliga leader. No wonder the Congress is embarrassed.

Kharge recently criticised upper castes that are against caste survey. He said this when BJP members sought his opinion on the differences within the Karnataka government over the caste survey. The Karnataka case census, conducted during Siddaramaiah's earlier tenure as CM, will soon be submitted by the Backward Classes Commission formally to the government soon. Whatever the demands from Vokkaligas and Lingayats, it will not be easy for Siddaramaiah to make any quick decision.

Lingayats protest

Jaya Mrithyunjaya Swamiji, a Panchamasali seer (Panchamasalis are from the Lingayat community), recently met him and demanded reservation in government jobs for the sub-sect under the backward class category.

Siddaramaiah promised that he would discuss the demand with his legal team. “He will conduct a meeting with the law ministry, advocate general and the chairman of the Karnataka Commission for Backward Classes soon,” an official source said.

Another Lingayat leader, 92-year-old Congress MLA Shamanur Shivashankarappa, who is also the president of the Veerashaiva Lingayat Mahasabha, said the main agenda of the Davanagere session will be to press the Union government to give reservation to all the sub-sects of the Veerashaiva Lingayat community.

“The caste census was not carried out scientifically. There are accusations that instead of going door to door and preparing reports, they sat at homes and filled up the findings,” he said. “We have demanded a scientific survey.”

Shivashankarappa has also started a signature campaign among MLAs against the caste census already done and demanded “facts-based” caste data.

In December, the then BJP government led by Basavaraj Bommai abolished the 3A and 3B categories of reservation and introduced 2C (Vokkaligas) and 2D (Lingayats) under Category 2 to benefit those in the backward class.

As per the changes, those in the 3A (Vokkaligas) and 3B (Lingayats including its subsect Panchamasali) categories moved to the 2C and 2D categories, respectively.

Thus, the Vokkaligas, who had a 4 per cent reservation, had their quota hiked to 6 per cent. Lingayats’ reservation went up from 5 to 7 per cent after the 4 per cent Muslim reservation was distributed equally among Vokkaligas and Lingayats.

Promised quotas

However, this was challenged in both the Karnataka High Court and the Supreme Court. The hearing is still pending. The High Court of Karnataka in an interim order allowed the state government to decide on reservation for the Panchamasali Lingayat sub-sect without disturbing the constitutionally guaranteed quota in Category 2A (Backward Classes) of the caste-based reservation list.

The BJP government’s decision was mainly to console the Panchamasali subsect of Lingayats. However, this could not be implemented due to the code of conduct coming into effect ahead of the assembly polls. The Panchamasalis have now started pressurising Siddaramaiah to implement the reservation.