BJP eyes Dalit-Lingayat-Gowda vote base to upset Opposition game plan

BENGALURU: The BJP central leadership is gearing up to conduct a ‘surgical strike’ in the state’s political battlefield by targeting Dalit-Lingayat-Gowda (DLG) voters who form a huge voter base.

In order to upset the Opposition gameplan, the state government on Friday announced how it will go about increasing the reservation for SCs, STs, Vokkaligas and Lingayats and also announced internal reservation. The party now plans to use this to capture votes of the three communities.

Though senior leader B S Yediyurappa had stepped down as Chief Minister, he is still the driving force of the election campaigning in the state with an eye on the Lingayat votes. The party is also working on strategies to not only urban Vokkaliga voters, but also rural voters from the community, and also the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities.