The Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly voted in favour of repealing the Centre’s new rules regulating livestock markets under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
It passed, with a show of hands, a “substantive motion” moved by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan seeking urgent roll back of the controversial notification.
Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) sole legislator O. Rajagopal was a lone voice of dissent. Speaker P. Sivaramakrishnan shot down Mr. Rajagopal’s demand for a recorded vote on the ground that it was belated.
The House witnessed a rare unity between Opposition and ruling benches on the politically, culturally, and religiously touchy issue.
Lawmakers, cutting across political lines, closed ranks to hammer the BJP-led Centre government for its “unfair, arbitrary, sly, and divisive attempt” to modulate the dietary choices of millions of people under the pretext of regulating livestock markets and ensuring animal welfare.
The Chief Minister was unsparing in his criticism of the Centre. The notification promulgated on May 27 was violative of the federal spirit of the Constitution. It was an abuse of the Centre’s powers to frame rules and a trespass on the legislative authority of States.
There was a clear RSS agenda behind the move. It was a brazen attempt to divide the country on religious and cultural lines.
The ill-thought notification had imperilled the livelihood of millions of dairy farmers and adversely impacted the leather and meat industry. It cocked a snook at the country’s religious and cultural diversity. An extreme Hindu right wing ideology fuelled the Centre.
The notification was an attempt of those regressive powers to deify the cow as a religious symbol of Hindus, polarise the nation on its use as cheap source of protein, and use the highly divisive issue to harvest political gain in the name of pan Hinduism.
The debate saw Mr. Rajagopal being heckled for his attempts to defend the Centre government. Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac asked Mr. Rajagopal to explain whether slaughtering livestock for meat could be construed as an illegal purpose.
Minister for Animal Husbandry K. Raju told the House about the adverse impact the new market regulations would have on dairy farming and meat processing in Kerala. The Speaker said the Chair could not remain neutral on the issue and asked those concerned to mitigate the concerns raised by lawmakers. The Assembly adjourned sine die with no date set for reconvening.
