The Centre's ban on sale of cattle at animal markets for slaughter has triggered a major row with its political opponents and supporters taking aggressive positions on the sensitive issue and protests and counter protests surfacing in different parts of the country on Monday, even as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister questioned the silence over the Kerala calf killing incident.
leading the beef brigade's charge, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee declared her Government will not accept the ban, and called it “undemocratic and unconstitutional.”
Interestingly, at a time when both the Opposition and the rulling BJP were warring over the issue, a BJP legislator in Christian majority Meghalaya opposed the ban saying if the party came to power in the State it will regulate proper rates for meats and legalized slaughter houses reducing the prices of beef and other meats.
BJP's Tura district president in Meghalaya Bernard N Marak said, “In Meghalaya most of the BJP leaders eat beef. Question of banning beef does not arise in a State like Meghalaya especially in Garo Hills. The BJP leaders in Meghalaya are well aware of the historical background and the Constitutional provisions over the 'hill' areas for which beef ban will remain un-imposed in Meghalaya.”
Protests were held in several parts of Tamil Nadu, including Madurai, Coimbatore, Erode and Hosur. Several activists of a little known pro-Tamil outfit were detained in Madurai where they had organised a beef eating contest. A group of students at IIT, Madras, held a 'beef-fest' on their campus on Sunday night.
In TN, raising the pitch on the issue, Opposition parties urged the AIADMK Government to enact a law against the ban. The DMK slammed the EK Palaniswami Government for “keeping mum” on the matter when neighbouring Kerala and Karnataka had vehemently opposed the ban.
Meanwhile, an embarrassed Congress leadership suspended three Youth Congress workers of Kerala, including its Kannur district president, for slaughtering a calf in public. Kerala BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan had posted the video of the incident on twitter, calling it “cruelty at its peak”.
later, police registered a case for slaughtering a calf in public during 'beef fests' organised across Kerala by the Congress and the left on Sunday to protest the Centre's ban.
The AICC in-charge of communications, Randeep Surjewala, said such action by Congress workers was “completely unacceptable” and “alien to civil society, our culture and founding principles”.
“Anybody who has done so will have no place in the party and that's why the workers have been already suspended by the Youth Congress,” he said in New Delhi.
“Such elements have no place in the Congress or in our culture. Indian culture is not to cause harm to any living being, much less to the holy cow which we all celebrate and revere,” he said, in an apparent attempt to contain the adverse fallout of the incident. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had termed the incident “thoughtless and barbaric”.
Describing the Kerala incident as “shameful” and “provocative,” Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters in New Delhi that, “This is shameful and in many ways provocative. Political opposition happens but it is unfortunate that such an act has been committed, that too by youth Congress workers. It is unfortunate.”
Questioning the silence of 'secular' parties on the Kerala incident, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said, “I feel there is a lot of talk in the country to respect each other's feelings and several organizations demand this in the name of secularism. But why are they silent on the Kerala incidentIJ” He was speaking at his public felicitation by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in lucknow.
“Why are the people who staged vociferous protests over the incidents in Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, silent on the issueIJ” Adityanath, who had ordered strict enforcement on the ban on cow slaughter and a crackdown on illegal slaughter houses soon after coming to power, said.
While many other parties were circumspect in their reaction, it was Mamata who indicated she was not ready to accept the beef ban come what may.
Slamming the Modi Government for “trying to hit the federal structure of the country by meddling in the matters that should otherwise be handled by
the State Governments,” Mamata said things were coming to such a pass that tomorrow “they will ask you to stop consuming eggs, fish or even rice and potato.”
She insisted that “the decision will hit the economy, harm the job scenario and create a socio-economic crisis. I will request the Centre to take a relook into the laws it has made.”
“This new rule is unconstitutional and unethical because the States were not consulted on this and would be fought constitutionally.”
In Tamil Nadu, raising the pitch on the issue, DMK working president MK Stalin will lead a protest on May 31 in Chennai against the ban, the party said, adding “the fundamental right to choice of food granted by the Constitution has been snatched away”.
In Meghalaya, Bernard N Marak, said, “In Garo Hills, beef is an expensive meat which cannot be availed by all. The Government has failed to regularize uniformity in rates of meats. The meats are also slaughtered without proper certification from the Vet doctors,” he said adding that BJP will do everything that the Congress Government have failed in its time by establishing slaughter houses, checking meat quality, regulating meat price etc.
It may be mentioned here that Christian majority Meghalaya and Nagaland are going to polls early next year.
Although the BJP has become ambitious for the two poll-bound northeastern States, particularly after the party's recent win in Manipur, BJP leaders in Meghalaya fears that the saffron party's stand on beef and slaughter house might impact the party's poll prospect in the forthcoming polls.