Those in the Karnataka Congress call it an acknowledgement of a decades-old demand to accord a separate religion status to Lingayats. Those in the BJP dub Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's move as a naked ploy to divide the Hindus and play vote bank politics.

On 19 March, the Karnataka government accepted the recommendations of the Justice Nagamohan Das Committee, which favoured ‘religious minority’ tag for Lingayats and lobbed the file into the Centre’s court for its approval.

Though this decision has been seen mainly through the political prism, there is a complex religious angle to it as well.