Lingayat Panchamasali Seer Ends Stir After BJP Govt Reconfigures Reservation Matrix But Congress Faction Opposes Quota Saying It Was Given By Depriving Muslims

Welcoming the new reservation matrix introduced by the BJP-led state government in Karnataka, Basava Jaya Mruthyunjaya Swamy, the influential seer of Lingayat Panchamasali Peetha of Kudalasangama and the honorary president of the Panchamasali reservation agitation committee, has announced that the 71-day stir been withdrawn.

Basava Jaya Mruthyunjaya Swamy said that the decision to withdraw the quota agitation was unanimous. However a faction of the community led by former Hungund legislator and Congress leader Vijayanand Kashappanavar, who is the national president of the agitation committee, expressed unhappiness with the government’s reservation matrix. 

Kashappanavar said he was opposed to the government moving Muslims from 2A to the Economically weaker Sections (EWS) quota. “It is not fair to snatch the reservation of another community to give it to us. It is an injustice to that community,” he claimed.

In what is being viewed as a politically astute manoeuvring ahead of the upcoming Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government on Friday abolished a religion-based reservations by scrapping 4 per cent reservation given to Muslims in Karnataka under 2B of Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, and distributed it to two politically influential communities — Veerashaiva-Lingayats and Vokkaligas — at 2 per cent each in jobs and admissions in educational institutions.

Panchamsalis constitute nearly 60 per cent of the Lingayt community and for the last few months, they have protesting to include their community under the 2A category within the backward classes in the state.

Lingayat community forms the bulwark of BJP's support base in the state,

Although former CM and senior BJP leader Yediyurappa is widely regarded as the tallest leader of the Lingayat community in the state, he does not belong to this susbsect.

Panchamasalis are currently placed in the 3B category (which has 5 per cent reservation for 41 castes and mainly includes Lingayat sub-sects), and the community leaders argue that moving them to the 2A category (which has 15 per cent reservation for 102 castes) will enable them to gain from the much larger reserved pool.

Demanding enhanced reservation for the community, Panchamsalis led by two of its powerful seers – Kudalasangama Panchamasali Peetha seer Basava Jaya Mruthyunjaya Swami and Swami Vachananand Guru of Veerashaiva Lingayatha Panchamasali Jagadguru Peetha in Harihara – undertook a series of protests including a month long ‘padayatra’ from Kudalasangama covering a distance of 700 km. The padayatra traversed through various villages and towns that are dominated by the Panchamsali subsect.

The sustained agitation by Panchamasalis proved a serious political challenge for the state BJP as it exposed the internal fault lines within the party.

Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, a senior BJP leader and party legislator from  from Vijayapura, expressed solidarity with the protest movement. Yatnal, a firebrand Hindutva voice who also served as an Union Minister in Atal Behari Vajpayee Cabinet, criticised the then CM Yediyurappa for not paying heed to the demands of the community.

Yatnal's active participation in Panchamsali agitation led to criticism from a section of the party. He was also warned by the BJP high command not to queer the pitch.

Two senior BJP Ministers -Murugesh R. Nirani and C.C. Patil  even criticised Yatnal's actions.

"He is not behaving like a BJP legislator, instead he is acting like a Congress leader all through the agitation. Ever since the agitations of the Panchamsalis began, it has become a forum to attack Yediyurappa rather than seeking any relief for the community,” he said.