Will ensure quality beef: Kerala BJP candidate

The BJP candidate for the by-election to Kerala’s Muslim-dominated Malappuram parliamentary constituency has promised quality beef for the people if they elect him.

Sreeprakash’s poll pledge counterbalances a growing effort in Bjp-ruled states to enforce a ban on eating beef and slaughter of cows, considered sacred in Hinduism. A day before his remarks, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh proposed the death sentence for cow killers and standard abattoirs in my constituency. My opponents are citing beef ban just to portray my party in bad light,” Sreeprakash said on Sunday.

Kerala is among a handful of states where there is no restriction on sale and consumption of beef by-election in Malappuram, where 65% of the population is Muslim and 5% are Christians, are beef and triple talaq.

Sreeprakash held the Congress guilty of enforcing the cow slaughter ban when the party was in power, and putting the blame on the BJP to show his party in a bad light.

The BJP has been accused of launching an ill-judged crackdown on unauthorised slaughterhouses in UP. Butchers were griping that even licensed abattoirs are being targeted.

“No doubt, if elected, I will ensure halal beef in the constituency. In Kerala, there is no ban on beef so that question (of ban)

The poor man’s protein — as the meat sold cheap is called — beef is almost a staple in Kerala.

Besides Muslims and Christians, a sizeable number of Hindus eat beef, which constitutes about 40% of the total meat consumed in the state. An estimated one million cattle are brought from neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka every year.

Beef undoubtedly is food for thought in the Malappuram by-election, necessitated by the death of the former Union minister E Ahamed of the Muslim League, who had won the seat in the 2014 general elections.

The Muslim League and the state’s ruling CPM are targeting

SREEPRAKASH SAID THE CONGRESS ENFORCED THE COW SLAUGHTER BAN WHEN IT WAS IN POWER, AND WAS NOW BLAMING THE BJP