New Delhi: The Congress today charged the BJP with ignoring the death of several cows at a cowshed run by a party leader in Chhattisgarh and asked whether Chief Minister Raman Singh would impose death penalty on “one of their own” as he had sought earlier.
At least 27 cows had died at a government-aided cow shelter in Durg district of Chhattisgarhrun by one Harish Verma, who was arrested yesterday, local police had said.
Referring to the Chief Minister’s comments earlier this year, AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said ‘gauraksha’ (cow protection) has been reduced to killing of innocents, mostly of minority community.
“If this is the new definition of gauraksha, I suppose everybody should ignore this terrible event (of cows death in Chhattisgarh)…because double standards is the definition of the BJP,” Singhvi told reporters here.
The Congress leader said “if I recollect, no less than death penalty was demanded more than once by the chief minister of Chhattisgarh.”
“We will hang those who kill cows,” the Chief Minister had said in April this year, a day after BJP-ruled Gujarat passed a stringent law, making cow slaughter punishable with a life term.
Singhvi said the BJP government will not act against “their own” in this case because “double standards is the definition of the BJP”.
—PTI