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.
This post was published on February 14, 2021 6:41 pm