Bengaluru: Close on the heels of Panchamasali Lingayats demand seeking 2-A category reservation for them, Veerashaiva Lingayat Seers have urged the Government to grant OBC status for the community.

Over a hundred Seers from the influential Veerashaiva-Lingayat community congregated in the State capital on Saturday to mount pressure on Government to include the community under Central OBC list. Veerashaiva-Lingayats, if included in this list, will get a share in 27 percent reservation for OBC in jobs and educational institutions.

The show of Veerashaiva-Lingayat Seers’ strength came at a time when the Panchamasali community, a numerically strong Lingayat sub-sect, is taking out a padayatra seeking Category 2A reservation in the State.

Taking part in the meeting of Veerashiava-Lingayat Seers at Sugnana Mantapa in Vijayanagar here, B.S. Paramashivaiah, a close aide of Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa and Chairman of Veerashaiva-Lingayat Development Corporation, said that there are 106 sub-sects among Veerashaiva-Lingayats.

Pointing out that the Centre has given OBC status for only 30 sub-sects, he urged the Centre to grant the status to all sub-sects.

Srisaila Jagadguru Channasiddarama Panditaradhya Swamiji said that OBC status is a long pending demand of Veerashaiva-Lingayat community. 

Maintaining that the demand is not a counter to Panchamasalis, he said that, in fact, it is complementary to it. He further said that sub-sects of Veerashaiva-Lingayat community in other States such as Kerala, Goa and Andhra Pradesh are under the Central OBC list, which isn’t the case in Karnataka.