Lingayat community crucial factor in deciding electoral outcome in poll-bound Karnataka
Bengaluru: In poll-bound Karnataka, where caste is one of the crucial factors in deciding the outcome of elections, it is key to understand the importance of the influential Lingayat or Veerashaiva-Lingayat community, to analyse the polity of the state.
Emerging in the 12th century, out of a distinct thought process that questioned the existing traditions, with Basavanna and other ‘Vachanakaras’ revolting against the caste system, that found support from all those who were discriminated, especially the working class, the sect that came to be known as Lingayats, has a significant place in the social history of Karnataka.
Lingayats are said to constitute about 17 per cent of Karnataka’s population, and the community has dominance in as many as 100 out of total 224 constituencies, majority of these seats being in north Karnataka region. Vokkaligas constitute 15 per cent, OBCs 35 per cent, SC/STs 18 per cent, Muslims about 12.92 per cent, and Brahmins about three per cent.
However, a caste census conducted between 2013 and 2018, which has not been made public yet, pegs the population of Lingayats and Vokkaligas much lower at nine and eight per cent respectively.
In the present Assembly, there are 54 Lingayat MLAs from across parties including 37 from the ruling BJP. Also, out of the 23 Chief Ministers that Karnataka has had since 1952, as many as 10 have been Lingayats, followed by six Vokkaligas, five from Backward Classes, and two Brahmins.
Well aware, as to how crucial it is, to get the support of the Lingayats to win the May 10 polls, political parties are trying to woo the influential community. Until 1989, the Lingayats were in the Congress’ fold and had formed the strong support base of the party, but the sacking of the then Chief Minister Veerendra Patil, a Lingayat, who was recouping from a stroke in 1990, by Rajiv Gandhi, turned the community against the party. The Congress, which had won 178 of the total 224 seats in the 1989 elections under the leadership of Veerendra Patil, was reduced to 34 seats in the next election.
With the disintegration of Janata Parivar and the emergence of B S Yediyurappa in the BJP, the larger part of the community’s vote base shifted towards the saffron party, making Karnataka its southern citadel. It got further strengthened when former Chief Minister and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy declined to transfer power to Yediyurappa in 2007, violating the power sharing agreement of BJP-JD(S) coalition, resulting in government collapsing and the latter riding on the sympathy wave in the next Assembly polls.
After the 2008 Assembly elections, BJP formed its first government to the south of Vindhyas, under Yediyurappa’s leadership by winning 110 seats, but five years later in 2013 polls, saffron party’s tally plunged to just 40 seats, as Yediyurappa by then had parted ways with BJP and had formed a new political outfit- Karnataka Janata Paksha.
