The Bharatiya Janata Party is trying with all sincerity to ensure the conduct of jallikattu. The blame for the imbroglio rests with the Congress-DMK, party’s State president Tamilisai Soundararajan said here on Saturday.
Addressing journalists outside the Coimbatore International Airport, she said that the BJP's support was for the people and it sensitive of the people's feelings. That was the reason that the Centre had in 2016 issued ordinance to conduct the sport.
But, now, with the Supreme Court seized of the matter, it was impossible to take steps. If the Court were to deliver the verdict — one way or the other — the Government would do all that was within its powers to conduct jallikattu.
It was with the hope that the Court would deliver the verdict before Pongal that the BJP had been saying that jallikattu would be conducted. Now that the verdict was reserved, the BJP could do little, she said.
Ms. Soundararajan said that her statement and those of other leaders that jallikattu would be conducted notwithstanding the Court ban and in deference to people's wishes was akin to the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa staging a fast for the Cauvery cause.
Blaming the Congress-DMK, she said that when the then Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh included bulls in the list of performing animals, both the parties did little to protest against the inclusion. It was only after the BJP's then Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar took steps to remove the bull from the list, that the anti-jallikattu lobby moved the court. Therefore, it was wrong to blame the BJP.
Ms. Soundararajan also sought a ban on PETA saying it had no business asking the President Pranab Mukherjee to not sign the ordinance, if the Centre were to promulgate to conduct jallikattu.
