Team Herald
PANJIM: A day after rightwing Hindu outfit, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), called for a beef ban in Goa, the Congress party charged the BJP-led NDA government of using its frontal organisations to prop up its hidden agenda of polarising the people on communal grounds.
Days after BJP’s senior leader and MP Subramanian Swamy had said on television, ‘Goa has a tradition, we have to change that’, the VHP at its gathering in Vasco on Sunday announced that they are capable of imposing complete cow slaughter and beef ban in the State in the next one or two years.
“It is a well-planned and well-thought out strategy of BJP at the Centre. The only hidden agenda behind these statements is to polarise the people of Goa on communal grounds. BJP and its frontal organizations like VHP want to divide the united people of Goa,” Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Luizinho Faleiro told media persons.
“BJP also wants to create a situation of artificial beef shortage in the State,” he charged condemning the repeated statements on beef ban.
The Congress MLA said BJP has appointed an extra-constitutional authority like VHP to prop up their hidden agenda. “The act of BJP-ruled Central government on deciding who will eat what or who will wear what or how many children a couple would have, is very dangerous to our constitutional set up. It is a serious threat,” he stated.
The former Chief Minister pointed out that under the Goa Daman and Diu Cow Slaughter Act, there is prohibition on slaughter of cows. “The question of cow slaughter does not arise. Also, we have a government-run Goa Meat Complex for legal slaughter,” he said.
The Congress had earlier questioned the BJP State unit’s silence on the controversy that even saw the State government’s alliance partner – MGP president Deepak Dhavalikar – calling for a ban on illegal cow slaughter.
The BJP State unit had merely claimed that it is Swamy’s personal view and the party has nothing to deal with it and had said that the beef ban is not an issue in Goa.
