Amit Shah to reach out to Lingayats on Basava Jayanthi

BENGALURU: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s national president Amit Shah will begin a two-day campaign tour of election-bound Karnataka on Wednesday, on the occasion of Basava Jayanthi, the birth anniversary of Basaveshwara, poet-philosopher and founder of the Lingayat stream of thought.

The Lingayats, who consider Basaveshwara the founder of a separate religion, have been supporters of the BJP from the late 1990s. But with the Congress government conceding the community’s demand and recommending a minority religion status for Lingayats just weeks ahead of the May 12 election, the BJP is making additional efforts to reach out to this powerful chunk of the electorate.

Shah has been visiting Lingayat mutts and meeting pontiffs, many of whom have publicly expressed support for the Congress this time. He met about 100 minor pontiffs during his last visit and assured them that the BJP would not allow the Lingayat community to be split along religious lines.


On Wednesday, Shah is scheduled to begin his visit by garlanding the statue of Basaveshwara in Bengaluru.

Not to be outdone, Congress state unit chief G Parameshwara has sent out a schedule stating that he will be garlanding the same statue, half an hour before Shah.

Shah will later meet meet senior litterateur and researcher M Chidananda Murthy, an expert on Lingayat issues and Dalit poet Siddalingaiah, reportedly to seek their views on what elements should go into the BJP manifesto.

This is in line with his stress on the Lingayat-Dalit axis, all through his campaign tour in the state.

Shah will hold internal team meetings as well as an interaction with traders and industrialists at the same venue as Congress president Rahul Gandhi did. He will also hold a public brainstorming meet with prominent personalities.