Seer stirs BJP’s troubled Lingayat waters, queers pitch for Union Minister Pralhad Joshi

A prominent Lingayat seer from Dharwad in Karnataka is turning out to be a major headache for Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, and Coal and Mines, Pralhad Joshi. On Monday, Fakir Dingaleshwara Swami, the pontiff of Shirahatti and Balehosur Bhavaikyatha Sanstana Mutt, announced his decision to contest as an Independent from Dharwad, Joshi’s pocketborough.

At a news conference, the seer said that in the 20 years Joshi had been MP, he had been “a zero” when it came to development works and a “hero in subjugating other communities, leaders”. He also asked why the BJP had fielded three Brahmins as candidates across Karnataka — in a reference to Joshi, Tejasvi Surya from Bangalore South and Visveshwar Hegde Kageri from Uttara Kannada — while “ignoring” communities such as Kuruba, Reddy, Jangama and others.

Joshi is seeking to win a fifth Lok Sabha election this time. While three of his four wins have been from Dharwad, one was from Dharwad North, which ceased to exist after the 2008 delimitation.

The declaration by the prominent seer to contest has caused the BJP some jitters. While given that the party has dominated the seat for over two decades, it might still win Dharwad, the optics of the seer joining the race against it raises the prospects of a possible split in the Veerashaiva Lingayat vote, which could give an edge to the Congress.

In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Joshi had won against the Congress’s Vinay Kulkarni. While the margin was 1.11 lakh votes in 2014, Joshi almost doubled it in 2019, winning by 2.05 lakh votes.

The Dingaleshwara seer’s reference to “the role of Joshi in subjugating Lingayat leaders in the region” was seen as a reference to the denial of a ticket to former CM Jagadish Shettar in