Lingayat issue: Forum criticises those ‘maligning’ its leaders

Taking objection to the “provocative” statements made by those opposing a separate religion tag for Lingayats, members of the Jagatika Lingayat Mahasabha on Monday said this was an attempt to “malign” the leaders of the movement.

Addressing presspersons here, S.M. Jamdar, national general secretary of Lingayat Mahasabha, alleged that some people, including the Pancha Peetha seers, were indulging in character assassination and blackmailing tactics to threaten leaders of the Lingayat movement. “This is unfortunate as ours is an ideology-based movement. I appeal to people to not politicise our movement,” he said.

Screening video clips of the statements made by seers of Rambhapuri Mutt and Shrishail Peetha, Mr. Jamdar took objection to the seers calling the Lingayat movement leaders as “agents of Congress and Pakistan.” “We are not affiliated to any party. Basavaraj Horatti, who is not with the Congress, is also with us,” he said.

Pointing out that “fundamentalist forces” were behind this, C. Jayanna from the movement said the president of Kalaburagi’s BJP Mahila Morcha Divya Rajesh Hagargi had made another provocative statement in Vijayapura on Sunday. “We are worried that such statements may even lead to disturbances and communal clashes ahead of elections. It is unfortunate that even the Pancha Peetha seers are speaking the language of common men,” he said.

The mahasabha appealed to people to question BJP leader Amit Shah, who is currently touring the State, on his stand regarding the issue in the wake of the State government issuing a notification.