Bengaluru, Dec 10: As expected, the NDA government at the Centre headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declined to accede to the request sent by the Karnataka government for granting a separate religious minority status to Lingayats/Veerashaivas who follow the philosophy and teachings of Basavanna.
In a letter addressed to Karnataka government on November 13, the Centre has said that a similar request was considered earlier and it was observed that Lingayats were always classified under Hindus since 1871 census, the first official census of India.
Further, the Centre has claimed that all members of scheduled caste professing Veerashaivas/Lingayat religion would lose their status if it is treated a separate religion. In the meantime, the central government placed the copy of the said communication before the Karnataka high court.
Taking the same on record, a division bench headed by chief justice Dinesh Maheshwari disposed of PILs challenging the communication sent by Karnataka government in March this year as nothing remained for consideration.
The demand for separate Lingayath religion, was very much vocal during the Assembly Elections in Karnataka and the then Chief minister Siddaramaiah had strongly defended his action in conceding the demand and recommended the same to the Center, after a favorable report received from an expert committee constituted to look into the issue.
However with the Congress party had failed to come back to power with majority the issue was seems to have lost its sheen and had also divided the Congress leaders on the matter.
Recently Water Resources minister D K Shivakumar, had publicly tendered apology for propogating the issue during the Congress regime.
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