From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Mar 15: Even as the Siddaramaiah regime is dithering between leaders of Veerashaiva and Lingayat communities on the separate religion and minority status for the Lingayat community, a group of seers led by Kashi Jnana Peetha’s Jagadguru Chandrashekar Shivacharya on Thursday demanded the State government to reject retired High Court Judge H.N. Nagamohan Das committee’s report favouring the minority "religious” status to Lingayats.

Nearly 50 Veerashaiva seers, who met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, demanded that the government should reject the expert committee report that recommended according minority "religious” status to only Lingayats, while excluding the Veerashaivas.

"We are not happy with the report as it is faoured the Lingayat faction, which was well represented in the committee. The issue is serious and needs long deliberations," said Sri Dingaleshwara Swami of Balehosur Math, who was part of the delegation.

He said: "We urge the Chief Minister not to make any recommendation to the Centre till the completion of the polls.
If need be, the government may constitute another expert committee, with representation from both Lingayats and Veerashaivas."

The pontiffs warned of a massive agitation if the government went ahead with its plan on recommending 'religious minority' tag for the Lingayat community.

In their unanimous opinion, the Veerashaiva seers said the Veerashaiva-Lingayat community is one but today it is facing an identity crisis.

However, a section of seers belonged to the Lingayat community misled the Chief Minister.

Vested interests have been making efforts to split the community ahead of elections, they alleged.

In a memorandum to the chief minister, the delegation of seers stated that Veerashaiva-Lingayat was an ancient religion established by Lord Shiva, propagated through panchaacharyas (pontiffs), Basavanna and sharanas (followers).

It may be recalled that the Siddaramaiah cabinet has been unable to resolve to vexed issue due to differences of opinion among the cabinet ministers and is worried that the issue, aimed at dividing the Lingayat-Veerashaiva community ahead of the forthcoming assembly elections and thereby dent the electoral prospects of opposition BJP, might turn out to be counter-productive if a hasty decision was taken without achieving unanimity.

The State Cabinet which was scheduled to take a final decision at its meeting on Wednesday has now been postponed till next week and probably will be held on March 19.