Karnataka's chief Shivakumar claims many Lingayat leaders ready to join Congress

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president D.K. Shivakumar on Saturday claimed that many Lingayat leaders belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party are ready to join the Congress party. There are many Lingayat leaders in Congress and more are yet to come, he said, adding, Lingayats are not the BJP's property.

While talking to a media person, Shivakumar lashed out at Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa and said there has been instability in the Karnataka BJP fold for the last one year, which is greatly hampering administration.

Several Lingayat leaders from BJP are ready to join Congress

In his brief interaction with media people at Kalaburagi airport on Saturday, Shivkumar said, "A lot of Lingayat leaders and workers in the BJP are keen on turning their face towards Congress. MB Patil and SR Patil moved on a separate path to attract BJP leaders and workers to the Congress party. Eshwar Khandre is also a dominant Congress leader and is also from Lingayat. The BJP has a misconception that the Lingayat community is their property, but it is not true".

Many senior Congress leaders were present there including, Ajay Singh, former Minister Sharan Prakash Patil, party leaders Tippannappa Kamakanur, Allamprabhu Patil among others.

Lingayat community in Karnataka

The Lingayat community holds around 17 to 22 per cent of the state's population, which plays a major role in making and breaking of a government. Lingayat voters hold sway in as many as 100 Assembly constituencies in north Karnataka. 58 MLAs belonging to the Lingayat community were elected in the present Assembly--38 MLAs among them belong to the BJP.

COVID situation in Karanataka

During the interaction, he also informed that Congress had launched a drive on the state level. He said the party leaders will interact with the people across the state to hear their grievances, mainly SCs, and the oppressed classes, and will also instill confidence among them. On the plight of SCs, he said, "On one hand, they have suffered because of Covid. On the other hand, they are still facing long-pending issues such as regularisation of their cultivable land and other problems."

The former state minister also criticized the BJP government for not assisting those people who were severely affected by COVID-19. He said that though the government has announced some compensation after Congress exerted pressure, the relief is yet to reach the beneficiaries.

Earlier, Shivakumar had challenged the state government to vaccinate 80 per cent of the adult population with both doses in three months. Meanwhile,  a total number of Covid-19 cases in Karnataka tallied to 1869 followed by 42 deaths in the last 24 hours.

IMAGE:PTI

CREDIT: (With some ANI inputs)