Muslims will not be affected if Lingayats get minority tag: Minister

BENGALURU: Seeking to allay the apprehension of Muslims and other minority communities, higher education minister Basavaraj Rayaraddi on Friday said existing reservation benefits for these communities won’t be affected if Lingayats are accorded minority status.
“We’re not seeking minority status at the cost of any other community. Whatever facilities Muslims and other minority communities get now will remain intact,” Rayaraddi said.


Stating that Veerashaivas and Lingayats are one and the same, he appealed to senior Congress leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa and swamijis of the Veerashaiva community to support the demand. “We’re not opposed to referring Lingayats as Veerashaiva Lingayats. But the name will prove detrimental to our argument that Lingayats are not Hindus since there’s a lot of evidence in the Vedas to consider Veerashaivas as Hindus. That’s why the Centre rejected the demand earlier,” he added.

BJP not concerned: BSY

BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa said his party is not too concerned about the controversy. “We’ve seen the disagreement within the cabinet. We’ll wait and watch how the situation develops," he said.

HC seeks responses by March 15

The high court asked the state and central governments to submit their responses to four petitions in connection with the minority-status controversy. The next hearing is on March 15. When a petitioner’s counsel sought an undertaking from the advocate general that no further steps would be taken on the issue, the bench said the HC’s interim order on January 5 is sufficient. TNN