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Prathima Nandakumar
Prathima Nandakumar

ROUND-UP

Karnataka this week: Assembly polls, Lingayat stir and more

poll-siddaramaiah-file-pti [File photo] Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with Prime Minister Narendra Modi | PTI

State goes to polls in April



Putting all apprehensions over an early poll at rest, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced that the assembly elections would be held in April 2018.

Siddaramaiah, addressing the newly-appointed office-bearers of the party at the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) office recently, said, “The elections for Karnataka will be held in April 2018. Let there be no doubts about it. I have even informed the high command about the dates."

The chief minister exhorted the party workers to work hard, educate the voters on the popular programmes and schemes of the Congress government.



Lingayat, a separate religion?

The tussle for better political representations in Karnataka, known for caste-based politics and identity politics, is not new. The latest to launch an agitation to show its strength is the dominant Lingayat community, which is seeking its own religious status.

Last week, more than 50,000 Lingayats from Karnataka, Telangana and Maharashtra gathered at Bidar’s Nehru Maidan to demand a separate 'religious minority' status. They contested that the Lingayats were not part of the Hindu religion nor the Veerashaiva sect.

The rally led by the Lingayat Dharma Samanvaya Samithi, represented by various Lingayat religious heads and elected representatives, urged the state government to represent their case before the Centre to accord independent religious status to the Lingayats.

The movement to delink the Lingayats from the Hindu religion is not new. Karnataka is estimated to have about 60 lakh Lingayats belonging to more than 60-odd sub-sects. The community is also accorded Backward Class status.

During the 2011 Census, the community leaders had made an appeal to its members to reject their classification under “Hindu” and opt for “others”.

Says Mate Mahadevi, head of Basava Dharma Peeta, “Lingayats are not Hindus, as we have a separate guru (Basavanna) and follow his Vachanas and not the Vedic scriptures followed by the Hindus. Our's is a secular cult that is based on social equality.”

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, assuring the Lingayat leaders of placing their demand before the Centre, has irked the BJP. While, the Lingayat community has been a traditional vote bank for the BJP, the Congress government's enthusiasm and support to the agitation has unsettled the saffron party.



'Ban Hindi in Namma Metro'



The row over usage of Hindi in the signboards across metro stations continues, with the government still awaiting a report on the language policy followed in other states, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal.

Meanwhile, the protesters who consider it as an act of 'imposition of Hindi' set out to blacken the Hindi boards across the metro stations. Six Kannada activists were arrested last Wednesday for blackening the signage boards at K.R. Market metro station. While the arrested have been sent to judicial custody, activists have threatened a rail roko if their demands are not met.

“We had given a deadline to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) and the government to remove the Hindi boards. We are forced to continue the agitation as the government has not taken any action,” said Karnataka Rakshana Vedika President T.A. Narayana Gowda.

A Twitter campaign—'#NammaMetroHindiBeda' (Don't want Hindi in Namma Metro)—that began last month against the Centre's three-language policy, which promotes use of signages in Hindi, English and Kannada in the metro stations, was opposed by pro-Kannada groups.



Water politics

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has blamed the Goa government for the inordinate delay in resolving the dispute over the sharing of Mahadayi river water.

Siddaramaiah asserted that the Karnataka government was keen that the issue be resolved out of court. But the stubborn attitude of the Goa government is delaying the resolution, he lamented. “I had written to my Goa and Maharashtra counterparts Manohar Parrikar and Devendra Phadnavis, respectively, last week, inviting them for talks at a place and date convenient to them, to find a negotiated settlement to the inter-state water dispute through talks. But Goa has rejected the offer.”

Siddaramaiah's move for negotiations comes following the suggestion of Justice J.M. Panchal, head of the Mahadayi Water Disputes Tribunal, who advised the three states to try for a negotiated settlement “in the spirit of brotherhood in the federal system”.

In a reply to Siddaramaiah's letter, Goa Water Resources Minister Vinod Palyekar said, “There will be no compromise or out-of-court settlement on Mahadayi case with Karnataka.” Palyekar also accused Karnataka of “playing dirty tricks from behind on the one side even as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, on the other hand, is asking for an out-of-court settlement for the dispute”.

The decision of the Goa government has put Siddaramaiah in a fix as the ongoing agitation over Kalasa-Banduri Nala project (part of Mahadayi dispute) in north Karnataka, which completed two years, would now get intensified.

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