Karnataka's Congress government supports religious minority tag for Lingayats

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah meets the Lingayat community seers at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru on Sunday. Pic/PTI

In a significant move, the Congress government in poll-bound Karnataka on Monday decided to recommend to the Centre to grant religious minority tag to the numerically strong and politically-influential Lingayat and Veerashaiva Lingayat community.

Briefing reporters after a cabinet meeting, Law Minister T B Jayachandra said it had accepted the recommendations of an expert panel set up by the state government on the issue. "The decision has been taken after deep deliberations and discussion," he said. According to the expert panel, Lingayats and Veerashaiva Lingayats are those who believed in the philosphy of Basaveshwara, 12th century social reformer, he said.

The demand for a separate religion tag to Veerashaiva/Lingayat faiths has surfaced from the community, amidst resentment from within over projecting the two communities as the same.

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever