'Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai': Karnataka Cong's Eshwar Khandre Bats for More Lingayat Tickets But Mum on CM Face

One of the justifications for this request is that whenever a Lingayat leader has led the Congress, the party had come to power in the past.

Congress’ state working president Eshwar Khandre, in an exclusive interview, told News18 that by giving more representation to Lingayats — in terms of tickets to the candidates from the community — the Congress can further improve its electoral chances. Khandre believes this is also a sure-shot way of defeating the BJP in the upcoming elections.

On the question of whether the Congress would consider a Lingayat as a chief ministerial candidate if they come to power, Khandre called it a “hypothetical question”.

“Kuch bhi ho sakta hai (anything can happen),” he said, stating that “there are umpteen people from the community in the party who can lead the state in the next government”.

Khandre also stressed that the “Yediyurappa factor” will play an important role in the elections. “We have seen how the BJP has treated a senior Lingayat leader like BS Yediyurappa. How he has been sidelined and insulted. The party has never allowed any Lingayat to reach the top,” he said.

The Lingayat community is the single-largest community in Karnataka and forms 17-18 per cent of the state’s voting population. Such is their hold that the Lingayat voters play a deciding role in close to 150 of 224 assembly seats in Karnataka, while of the 23 chief ministers the southern state has seen, nine are from that community.

Recently, in a meeting of senior Lingayat Congress leaders including Khandre, Shamanur Shivashankarappa, MB Patil and Vinay Kulkarni, it was discussed that at least 60 Lingayat candidates out of the 224 seats in the assembly should be given tickets. This was later communicated to the Congress screening committee that has been meeting to decide on ticket distribution.

Khandre told News18 that the Lingayats have come to the conclusion that the Congress is the alternative. “Whenever a Lingayat has led the party, the Congress has won an election. We should strike when the iron is hot and this is the right time,” said Khandre.

As the MLA from the Bhalki assembly segment and a Lingayat himself, Khandre said the community has understood the “hidden agenda of the BJP and Sangh Parivar”.

“The Congress takes everybody together and that is why many Lingayat leaders from the Opposition are joining the party,” he said.

The Congress has been trying to win back its lost support among the Lingayats for decades. The party faced the anger of the community when then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi unceremoniously announced the ouster of Veerendra Patil, a Lingayat chief minister, in 1990. Despite the Congress coming to power twice since then, attempts to woo back the community have remained largely unsuccessful. The Lingayats later turned towards the BJP which was further consolidated by Yediyurappa who today is known as one of the tallest leaders of the community.

Every party in Karnataka is looking to woo this politically influential community in their favour, including pitching for a separate religion status, but that demand remains unfulfilled.

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