Seers urge BJP to let Yediyurappa continue as Chief Minister

In a show of strength by the Lingayat religious mutts, a council of seers that met here on Sunday urged the BJP high command to keep B.S. Yediyurappa as Chief Minister, even as the latter in Belagavi put the onus on the high command for his continuation.

Mr. Yediyurappa should be allowed to complete his term since he has been working with efficiency, the seers said at a council meeting that was convened to discuss the “current crisis”. They refused to call the event an attempt at show of strength by the Lingayat community. In light of speculation that the meeting was “engineered” by Mr. Yediyurappa’s camp to exert pressure on the party high command, they also clarified that they had gathered “voluntarily”.

“We had to come to the fore since the high command is not taking any action against those casteist people within the BJP who have been conspiring against Mr. Yediyurappa,” Balehosur Mutt seer Dingaleshwara Swami claimed. He urged the party high command to consider this. Saying that Mr. Yediyurappa had given higher grants to mutts “to enable social, religious and educational service”, the seer said it was their “duty to show gratitude to him”.

Responding to those asking religious leaders not to interfere in politics, the seer said that they were not interfering. “Mutts have been working well since the times of the Mysuru royalty and in the post-independence period,” he said. He added that mutts existed even before political parties came into existence.

Among the prominent seers present were Nidumamidi Mutt seer Veerabhadra Chennamalla Swami, Murugha Mutt seer Shivamurthy Murugha Swami, and Tiptur Shadakshari Mutt’s Rudramuni Swami.