The Karnataka government does not plan to introduce a bill to repeal the anti-cattle slaughter law in the ongoing Karnataka Assembly session partly due to pressure from members within the Congress, a senior party leader told TNM on Thursday, July 13. Meanwhile, the state cabinet has approved the scrapping of the anti conversion law passed by the BJP and a bill is expected to be presented in Karnataka in the Assembly in the ongoing session.
The Karnataka government has been under pressure from the BJP over the proposal to overturn the anti-cattle slaughter law introduced by the BJP in 2020. The BJP’s law made it illegal to transport, slaughter, or trade all cattle (cows, bulls, oxen) in the state in January 2021. The only exceptions in the act are for buffaloes above the age of 13 and terminally ill cattle. The amendment will restore the 1964 law that banned the killing of “any cow or calf of she-buffalo” and allowed the slaughter of bullocks, and male or female buffalos above the age of 12 years and certified by a competent authority to be incapacitated for breeding, or found to be sick.
The BJP stalled the Legislative Council proceedings on July 5 accusing the government of allowing illegal cow slaughter in the State. BJP MLC N Ravikumar sought a firm reply from Animal Husbandry Minister K Venkatesh during the Question Hour and also alleged that cows were being illegally slaughtered in Karnataka. Ravikumar further said that religious heads in Karnataka had threatened to sit on a dharna over the move to withdraw the anti-cattle slaughter provisions introduced by the BJP in 2020.
But TNM has learnt that there is also disagreement within the Congress about repealing the anti-cattle slaughter law. We had earlier reported how the anti cattle slaughter law had adversely affected small farmers in rural areas as well as leather workers and people involved in meat export industries, a profession largely occupied by Dalits and Muslims. Farmers had spoken out against the law saying that they were burdened with aging and unproductive cows as the then state government had not yet built goshalas in each district of the state to accept old cows.
The Congress government however is expected to fulfill its poll promise and repeal the State’s Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Act, 2022 — popularly known as the anti-conversion law — which was one of the most controversial legislations ushered in during the previous BJP regime. In its manifesto for the Assembly election, the Congress had promised to repeal all “unjust and anti people law”.