Mumbai: A partner in the federal coalition government plans to complain to President Pranab Mukherjee that the ban on beef has led to rendered thousands jobless in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.
The Republican Party of India (A) on Tuesday organized a protest rally in the state capital of Mumbai against the blanket ban on consumption and selling of beef under the recently enacted Maharashtra Animals Preservation (Amendment) Act.
The ban is imposed by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that heads the federal National Democratic Alliance government. Hindus consider cow as a sacred animal, but the ban covers bulls and water buffalos, twocircles.net reported.
The BJP imposed beef ban after it came to power Maharashtra and Haryana, a northern Indian state, in October 2014.
In Mumbai, hundreds of RPI (A) workers, beef merchants and workers joined the rally that started from Mhada office at Bandra to the collector office. They then held a sit in demonstration outside the collector’s office in Bandra East.
Party president Ramdas Athawale demanded that the ban be lifted as it has rendered thousands of people unemployed. The ban, he added, was affecting mostly the farmers and the Quresh community of Muslims.
“When cow slaughtering is banned in the state since 1976, there was no need to extend the ban to ‘gauvansh’ that includes bulls and bullocks. The ban should be lifted as it is affecting farmers and beef trade workers,” he said.
“We are an ally of BJP. It doesn’t mean we will close our eyes and let the government do injustice to the minority community,” Athawale told the protesters. People, he added, are tired of being unemployed. “They want their work to be restored. On the other hand, farmers can do nothing but watch helplessly as they are not allowed to sell the old cattle to slaughter houses.”
After announcing that his party delegation would meet President Mukherji to discuss repercussions of the beef ban, he said, “If the ban is not lifted, we will intensify our protest and launch a ‘jail bharo’ (fill the jail) agitation.”
The protesters submitted a memorandum to the collector demanding lifting of the ban on the slaughter of bulls and bullocks in the state.
RPI had extended its support to the BJP during the Maharashtra assembly polls. However, after the beef ban was enacted in March, the party opposed it terming it to be against the interests of farmers and beef traders.