Siddaramaiah’s controversial remark on ‘corrupt Lingayat CM’ creates storm in community

BENGALURU: Opposition leader Siddaramaiah’s remark that the ‘Lingayat Chief Minister is the root of all corruption in the state’ has now stirred up a storm in the Lingayat community. Some community leaders have approached the Election Commission against Siddaramaiah for defaming and portraying the Lingayat community as corrupt and demanding action against him.

Later on, Siddaramaiah clarified that he was specifically targeting Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai not the Lingayat community. He also claimed that the BJP had twisted and misinterpreted his statement.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, reacting to Siddaramaiah’s remark, said, “Siddaramaiah is a senior leader. I never expected such statements from him. He has hurt the Lingayat community and made a mistake by calling the Lingayat community as ‘corrupt’. They will give the right answer to him in coming days”.

After his remark led to controversy, Siddaramaiah put out a series of tweets saying that the BJP has cropped my statement and edited to suit their propaganda. “They are trying to portray it wrongly as ‘all Lingayats are corrupt’, which I never said”, he claimed.

“I believe the Lingayat community of the state will not fall for such conspiracies of the BJP, which is being done for electoral gains”, he said. “While responding to a media query on the BJP using Lingayats as weapon, I have said Bommai is a corrupt chief minister and I never said Lingayats are corrupt. All these are lies created by the BJP”, the Congress leader said.

Siddaramaiah further said, “The Lingayat community has given many honest Chief Ministers like Veerendra Patil, S Nijalingappa, J H Patel, B D Jatti, S R Kanti. I have respect, affection and admiration for all these leaders”.

“We have given more tickets to Veerashaiva-Lingayats because we have respect for them. Last time, we gave tickets to 47 Lingayat candidates and this time, we have given tickets to the community in about 52-53 constituencies. We do not decide the chief minister on the basis of caste. The high command takes a decision after collecting the opinion of the legislators. This is the practice we have followed. If the BJP does it on the basis of caste, it is their party’s matter. We have no problem with that”, Siddaramaiah stated in a series of tweets.