8 held in Kerala for killing calf Meghalaya BJP leader quits over beef party, another to go
CATTLE SLAUGHTER BAN Youth Congress workers were arrested for slaughtering a calf and cooking its meat at a demonstration in r last week to protest the Centre’s new notification
Kerala police arrested eight workers of the Youth Congress on Thursday, who allegedly slaughtered a calf in Kannur last week to protest the Centre’s new notification on cattle trade.
The incident triggered outrage, and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had dubbed it a “thoughtless and barbaric act”.
The Congress later suspended three people, including Rejil Makutty, who led the crowd, from the party.
The activists allegedly slaughtered the animal in the heart of the north Kerala city, while shouting slogans against the Narendra Modi government. They later cooked the meat and distributed it.
The protest was in response to a notification issued by the Union government outlawing the sale of cattle for slaughter.
Cows are considered holy by Hindus, and Saturday’s slaughtering boomeranged on the Congress when Kerala BJP president Kummanan Rajasekharan posted a video of the demonstration. A number of BJP leaders spoke up against the issue, including the chief ministers of Gujarat and UP.
The youth Congress leaders admitted that they made a mistake with the demonstrations.
Sources said they thought beef festivals had become common, and a slaughter-and-cook demonstration would have been something unusual.
Kerala is ruled by a Left government, one of the strongest critics of the BJP. Its CM Pinarayi Vijayan, and his Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, were among the most prominent critics of the notification issued last week.
A proposed beef party by several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Meghalaya to mark the third anniversary of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre has sparked a controversy with one office bearer quitting the saffron outfit and another likely to be asked to resign.
“I quit the party as the BJP is trying to impose their ideology on us. What’s wrong if we planned to celebrate the third anniversary in our own traditional way?” Bernard N Marak, former West Garo Hills district president of the BJP, questioned.
The leader hit the headlines a few days back after he stated that the saffron party would bring down prices of beef in Meghalaya if it comes to power after next year’s assembly polls.
Bernard told HT that the party was to be held in the second week of June “in a bid to clear doubts of the local people that BJP was trying to impose a ban on consumption of beef”.
“The party was growing rapidly in Garo Hills. But now many people are worried and there could be more resignations,” Bernard, who plans to contest as an Independent candidate from Tura (South) in 2018, said.
The party’s North Garo Hills district president Bachu C Marak also posted about holding a beef party with ‘bitchi’—the local term for rice beer—on Facebook on Wednesday.
BJP’s Meghalaya in-charge Nalin Kohli, who was in Shillong, told HT that the state unit will take steps to remove Bachu or will welcome his resignation.
“The BJP as a disciplined party will not tolerate any members who, for their personal political gains, digress from Modiji’s agenda of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ (With Everyone, For Everyone’s Development),” Kohli said.
There are 26 assembly seats in Garo Hills and some party leaders feel the Centre’s decision to ban the sale of cattle for slaughter could affect the party’s prospects in the upcoming assembly polls.
Kohli, however, feels Bernard and Bachu used the beef row to find a convenient excuse to “play the martyr card”.
“None of this will make us digress from the single-minded goal of ousting the corrupt Congress government of Mukul Sangma. More credible leaders and personalities are getting drawn to the BJP on a regular basis,” he said.