this story originally appeared in on feb 26 2018bengaluru bjp president amit shah is retracing most of the route that his congress counterpart rahul gandhi had taken in the north eastern part hyderabadkarnataka of electionbound karnataka during his ongoing threeday tour but leaving out all the muslimassociated places in the region if gandhi visited the twinreligious places of sharanabasappa temple and the khwaja bande nawaz darga in kalaburagi ten days ago shah visited only the former gandhi went to temples and religious institutions known for their multireligious and secular outlook on his fourday tour but shah took another tack and visited the famed gurudwara in bidar city and the buddha vihar at renukalgi subtly underlining the bjp support to other minorities he also visited the mutt of a yogini the manikeshwari mutt whose devotees believe lives without eating food or drinking water shah is set to visit the anubhava mantapa a 12th century seat of equality and philosophy set up by philosopherreformer basavanna basaveshwara the patron saint of the powerful lingayat community that supports the bjp on monday gandhi visited this site and was given literature about the basava philosophy 11 days earlier after prime minister narendra modi mentioned this centre in his speech ldquoit is almost as if the competition is directrdquo a senior politician from this region who declined to be identified even by his party told et ldquothe differences are subtle and there but the imitation of gandhirsquos route by shah is almost uncannyrdquo gandhi currently on tour in the bombaykarnataka northwestern region of the state has been quoting several of basavannarsquos philosophic poems in his speeches which despite mispronunciations has found favour with the public he has avoided the templereligious run in that region also a hotbed of lingayat politics and a stronghold of the bjp shah held meetings with farmers on sunday at humnabad gandhi held one in sindhanoor where he was told that the centre needed to waive loans and asking the state to do it was not correct ldquohe lied to us and said that the centre had not waived money or npas for industrialists but we are aware of the truth we told him we are not congress or bjp or janata dal we donrsquot want promises we want action nowrdquo farmer leader mallikarjunswamy of bidar told et he said about 12 leaders had spoken from among the 2000odd farmers present at the interaction and explained to shah in hindi how the pradhan mantri fasal bima yojana had failed as the control was in the hands of private insurance companies ldquowe told rahul gandhi also when we met him at basavakalyan airport that the government needs to be committed to farmersrsquo welfare and waive loansrdquo farmer leader sidramappa andure from bhalki said ldquowe told him chief minister siddaramaiah is not listening to us and that the farmer will survive and not commit suicide only if good prices are given for crop and the swaminathan committee report is implementedrdquo shah scored brownie points