A Veerashaiva-Lingayat community organisation on Sunday extended support to the Congress for the Karnataka Assembly polls, scheduled for Wednesday.

The Karnataka Veerashaiva and Lingayat Forum gave its support in writing to the Congress and urged members of the community to vote for the party in the upcoming elections.

While the group doesn’t represent the entire Veerashaiva-Lingayat community, its decision has significance as the Congress has been trying to loosen the BJP’s grip over much of the community and win the members back.

The community forms nearly a fifth of the 5.2-crore voters in the state. While the Lingayats are those who follow the Vachanas (scriptures) of its 12th-century founder and reformer-saint Basaveshwara, Veerashaivasfollowthe Vedas and the Upanishads.

A political blunder had cost the Congress one of its most reliable vote banks when the then party president Rajiv Gandhi “unceremoniously” sacked Veerendra Patil as chief minister after he suffered a stroke.

The casual manner in which Rajiv announced Patil’s replacement to reporters at the Bangalore airport had angered the community. While the community briefly swung to the Janata Dal headed by H.D. Deve Gowda, many were eventually lured by the BJP led by B.S. Yediyurappa, known as the “Lingayat strongman”.

Congress campaign committee chairman M.B. Patil, himself a Lingayat, had recently termed the state polls as the homecoming of the community. The Congress has fielded 45 members of the community.

The declaration of support for the Congress came at a time the BJP is smarting from the exits of former chief minister Jagadish Shettar and former deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi who have since been fielded by the Congress in Hubli-Dharwad Central and Athani constituencies, respectively.

The statement from the group urged the community to “teach a good lesson to the Manuvadis” and pointed out how the BJP had ill-treated its Lingayat leaders such as Shettar, Savadi and Yediyurappa, among others.

“Yediyurappa was madeto shed tears after being removed as chief minister,” the statement said, pointing out how he was forced to resign in 2021.

The statement alluded to how Shettar, Savadi, Ayanur Manjunath and Sanjay Patil were mistreated in the BJP.

“The BJP has been either covertly or overtly oppressing the Lingayat community after (Basavaraj) Bommai came to power,” it noted.

The organisation described as “far from the truth” the allegations that the Congress ill-treated Lingayat leaders.

“The allegation that the Congress had ill-treated Lingayat leaders is far from the truth. They have given prominence to Lingayat leaders such as (former chief ministers) S. Nijalingappa, B.D. Jatti(who was Vice-President as well as acting President of India), Veerendra Patil, (former ministers) Rajashekar Murthy, S.R. Patil and M.B. Patil.

“So we request you to vote against the Manuvadis in this election… and teach them a lesson,” the group said in its statement released to the media on Sunday.