Congress may surpass BJP in the seat matrix

Belagavi: This Lingayat belt HQ in the poll-bound Karnataka may actually put Congress ahead of the race, the party at the end of the third and perhaps the last list may actually surpass the BJP in fielding more Lingayat candidates.

In the first two lists, the party has already received a demand from the Lingayat community leader for fielding at least 55 seats to the Lingayat community leaders from the party. According to party sources, the numbers may meet the demands in the batch of lists. The Congress party has already given 43 seats of Lingayats in the last two lists released on 25 March and 6 April. What is more brighter for the Lingayat community is that the party has given 43 out of the list announced for 166 tickets. This number is what the party fielded in 2018. But with one or two more lists on the anvil, the Lingyats may get more seats.

The BJP may be on the way out of the favour of the Lingayat community following the party's leader BS Yeddyurappa is surely not going to be the Chief Ministerial face. The Congress party's own Lingayat leaders have found in this situation a good tiding and have appreciated the Congress' advances towards the community. The Congress party may surpass its 2018 tally of fielding Lingayat candidates, and perhaps it might want to put itself into the situation before 1991 when it was the favourite party of the Lingayat community in the Lingayat belt comprising of 14 districts. It could be recalled that the BJP had fielded 55 Lingayat leaders in 2018. It was not a surprise to the party that it romped home with the single largest party of 104 seats out of which 40 were Lingayats.