to take over the reigns of the state administrative machinery as the new Chief Minister in the evening representing the Janata Dal-Secular party while on the other hand Dr. G Parameshwar, KPCC President will be sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister representing the Indian National Congress party.
The move of the Congress party in only naming the KPCC president for the DCM’s post and not heeding to the demand of the 16 MLAs’ Lingayat lobby to give one more DCM position to a Lingayat legislator belonging to the North Karnataka region is set to pave way for new disenchantment among the newly elected Lingayat legislators.
The Congress party had fielded 44 Lingayat candidates of whom 16 have emerged victorious while two are elected on a Janata Dal-Secular party ticket. Thanks to the Veerashiva-Lingayat controversy let free by the Siddaramaiah led previous Congress party government the ruling party received a severe drubbing during the polls.
About 16 Ministers including many Lingayat leaders were packed off in the just concluded polls while returning the BJP nominees in a big way thus making the Siddaramaiah government’s move for a separate minority religion status tag recommendation boomerang rather than be of any advantage.
Interestingly Shamanuru Shivashankarappa, President of the All India Veerashiva Mahasabha which was dead opposed to the government’s stance and MB Patil, former Major Irrigation minister who was in the forefront in favor of the government’s recommendation have managed to win. However Vinay Kulkarni and Dr Sharanprakash Patil,other two ministers’ for the government on the issue have been bundled off by the voters.
Once the move to lobby for a DCM berth for Lingayats’ of the North Karnataka set in motion counter moves also began by other communities.RV Deshpande,Brahmin Congress MLA for eight times lobbied to become DCM on seniority and community basis.Later it was the turn of R Roshan Baig,former minister and Shivajinagar MLA who gave a futile try to become a DCM on minority quota basis.
Much before the issue had its natural death the move also gave rise to a different controversy as HK Patil,former Rural Development Minister’s name also cropped up in the Lingayat MLAs’ belonging to North Karnataka region to be considered for the DCM post.
Umesh Patil,president of youth wing of Veerashiva Mahasabha has issued a press note questioning the rationale behind the KPCC move of including HK Patil’s name among the 16+1 Lingayat MLAs’.He’s also urged the former minister to produce documents to this effect.
It may be recalled here that although HK Patil belongs to the Reddy community with Tirupati Tirumala as the family deity every now and then he’s under the habit of occupying positions in the name of a Lingayat!
Hindusthan Samachar/Manohar Yadavatti
