Amit Shah’s no to Lingayat minority tag, SC verdict on Dalits may influence Karnataka polls

Two developments in the last couple of days concerning two major umbrella communities in Karnataka –Dalits and Lingayats – could dramatically change the face of upcoming assembly elections in the state on May 12.

They are: one, BJP president Amit Shah’s statement to Lingayat pontiffs that his party will not support a minority religion tag to the community; and two, a Supreme Court ruling that it’s not mandatory to act on a Dalit complaint under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Some social activists said the development may lead to the two communities largely supporting Congress in the elections, but observers said the two issues could go either way depending on which party communicates better on them.


On Tuesday, Shah told a group of over 100 pontiffs of the Veerashaiva-Lingayat mutts – a video clip of which has gone viral – that BJP would not support a division among their 99 subgroups to form a new religion.

Eminent writer Chandrashekar Patil was critical of this move. “Shah, I thought, was a clever politician. But he has made it clear to the Lingayats, who want the minority tag, that the BJP will not support it,” Patil told ET.

“This means all the Lingayats who want the new religion, who were supporting the BJP earlier and had hoped the Centre will endorse their demand, will now shift to Congress,” he said.

BJP, however, is confident of Lingayat support, and maintained that CM Siddaramaiah’s decision to clear the notification of a minority tag for the Lingayats was politically motivated and “viciously divisive”.

“The move will prove suicidal for Siddaramaiah as the Veerashaiva-Lingayats would rather trust their own community man, B S Yeddyurappa,” party spokesperson Vaman Acharya said.

Yeddyurappa is BJP’s chief ministerial candidate in Karnataka. Acharya said Siddaramaiah is known to be non-religious. “All his visits to mutts and temples now appear to be an act. But Yeddyurappa is truly religious,” he told ET.

“We, the BJP, know the pulse of the society and we will behave in such a way as to calm down the issue of Lingayat religion and not allow it to burn. That is what Shah is also doing,” he said. Some experts believe the recent Supreme Court decision on the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which led to nationwide protests by Dalit groups, will impact BJP negatively.