The Hindu : Allies force Govt. to defer Bill banning cow slaughter

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Friday, Aug 22, 2003

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Allies force Govt. to defer Bill banning cow slaughter

By Our New Delhi Bureau

— PTI

The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, receiving a memorandum from the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu, which lists the State issues pending with the Centre, at his chamber at Parliament House in New Delhi on Thursday.

NEW DELHI AUG. 21. The Vajpayee Government was today forced to defer the introduction of a Bill banning cow slaughter.

Within 48 hours of helping the BJP defeat the Opposition's motion of no-confidence against the Government, allies of the ruling National Democratic Alliance joined hands with the Opposition to derail a move designed to propitiate the Sangh Parivar as well as woo the BJP voters in the four northern States going to the polls later this year.

Much to the BJP's embarrassment, the resistance was spearheaded by its allies, the TDP, the DMK, the MDMK, the PMK and the JD(U), with support from the CPI(M), the Congress, the RJD and the IUML.

The Lok Sabha witnessed uproarious scenes, as soon as the Speaker, Manohar Joshi, asked the Agriculture Minister, Rajnath Singh, to move the Bill. Angry TDP, DMK, PMK and MDMK members were on their feet, demanding that the Bill be withdrawn.

Devendra Prasad Yadav (JD-U), Venugopalchari (TDP) and Ramachandran (CPI-M) were gesticulating at the Treasury Benches.

"This is not a part of the NDA agenda and cannot be forced on the people," said Mr. Yadav. In the midst of the din, Somnath Chatterjee (CPI-M) asked the Government to explain why it was not making an effort to evolve a consensus on the issue. As heated arguments continued, the Speaker adjourned the House for 10 minutes.

When the House reassembled, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, announced that the Government would not press for the introduction of the Bill. "We will convene an all-party meeting to try and evolve a consensus on the issue."

The Government's parliamentary managers were obviously caught napping; in fact, the lobby correspondents were aware that the Telugu Desam Party was mobilising opposition to the Bill and was in touch with other NDA allies.

The opposition to the Bill was equally vociferous outside the House. The TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu, who was here, publicly cautioned the Government against acting with haste in the matter.

"This is not a priority item, there should be no haste, we have asked the Government to discuss the matter with all political parties," Mr. Naidu told newspersons.

Asked to elaborate, he said that apart from the issue being a State subject, there was an economic dimension to it that needed to be looked into.

(According to a PTI report, Mr. Naidu met the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and is understood to have expressed reservations over the Government's move to enact an anti-cow slaughter Bill.)

After the allies upset the BJP electoral applecart, Ms. Swaraj found herself doing a bit of explaining.

Talking to mediapersons, she said cow protection was not one of the three contentious issues which the BJP had agreed to put on the back-burner. According to her, cow slaughter was not a "no-no" issue.

She also defended the constitutional correctness of the Bill. "We expected some parties to raise questions on the Centre's legislative competence and we were prepared to deal with it. We did not expect allies to question the Bill at the introductory stage; all knew that the Bill would get sent to the standing committee where different parties' objections could be voiced," she said.

Talking to The Hindu, a visibly angry Adishankar (DMK) described the proposal as "anti-Dalit and anti-minorities".

The Congress said Parliament did not have the legislative competence to make a law on a subject that was on the State list.

The party's spokesman, Satyawarat Chaturvedi, said the Congress stand was clear from the fact that many of its States had such legislation in place already.

To a question on why Kerala and many of the northeastern States did not have a cow slaughter ban despite having Congress regimes at present or in the past, he said: "India is a nation of diversity, and we believe this is a subject that should essentially be addressed by the States concerned."

As for the Government's bid to introduce the Bill, Mr. Chaturvedi said that it had been done without consulting the allies.

Also, he said that if the BJP was serious, it should have the Governments of Goa and Nagaland — where the party/ally is in power — bring out such legislation.

Earlier, Ms. Swaraj admitted that the Meghalaya unit of the BJP had pleaded that the State should be exempted from the ban.

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