‘India will ban cow slaughter across country’

INDORE: The NDA government will try its “level best” to bring in a countrywide ban on slaughter of cows by evolving a consensus, home minister Rajnath Singh said on Sunday.
“Cow slaughter cannot be accepted in this country. We will make all-out efforts to ban slaughter of cows and will also try hard to have a consensus for this purpose,” he told a gathering of spiritual leaders of Shwetambar Jains, a prominent sect of Jainism.
Referring to the cow slaughter ban in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, the senior BJP leader said nobody should doubt the government’s commitment to prevent slaughter of cows.
“Nobody can question our commitment to ban slaughter of cows. The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has enacted a tough law for this purpose so has the Maharashtra government. We didn’t spare time to send a bill passed by Maharashtra government to President for his assent,” Singh said referring to the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act which also extends the ban on slaughter of bulls and bullocks.
On the occasion, Acharya Shivmuni wanted the Centre to bring in a legislation in the current Budget Session for banning slaughter of buffaloes besides cows.
To this, Singh said the government needs to have an absolute majority in both Houses of Parliament to enforce complete ban on slaughter of cows.
“You must be reading in newspapers how the government has to struggle to get various bills passed in Parliament,” he said. BJP lacks numbers in Rajya Sabha.
Singh recalled that when he was Agriculture Minister in 2003, his ministry had prepared a bill for the total ban of slaughter of cows.
“But the moment I rose to present it (bill) in Parliament, uproar was created. That is why we couldn’t get the bill passed,” he said.