Author: Amitav Ranjan
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 5, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=23313
Introduction: States, UTs will be
told to enforce ban; Cabinet will decide tomorrow
In a move that could help the BJP
keep the poll pot boiling, the Cabinet plans to ask the states and Union
Territories to pass a resolution banning cow slaughter, and delegate to
the Centre the authority to enact an amendment introducing a uniform nationwide
law.
If more than half of the state and
UT legislatures empower the Centre to legislate, the proposed amendment
would make sale of beef a cognizable, but bailable, offence. A safety valve
has also been provided by allowing state governments to issue permits for
sale of beef. Abetment of crime would also be a crime under the proposed
law.
Smuggling of cows from one state
to another and constitution of a permanent National Development Commission
on Cows would also feature in the amendment. At present, cow slaughter
is banned in 23 states but different laws and divergent penalties are being
practised.
The move, which comes up for Cabinet
approval on Tuesday, would take cow slaughter into the main Opposition
Congress camp, forcing the latter to take a stand on the issue that has
now snowballed into a secular versus non-secular sides.
The process itself is expected to
take at least nine to 10 months, sources said, enough to keep the pot boiling
for Assembly polls this year and the general elections next year.
The credit for the strategy partially
goes to the Congress' Madhya Pradesh leadership that has made it simpler
for Atal Behari Vajpayee to revive an issue that has been on the backburner
since a Constitutional amendment bill lapsed in the 1980s.
Large-scale violence in Digvijay
Singh's Ganj Basada this January, following the recovery of a cow's head,
propelled the cow into the political arena.
Even Vajpayee was dragged in through
a poster campaign. That spurred a bedlam in Parliament in March when a
public member bill, introduced by Prahlad Singh Patel last May, seeking
a Central legislation banning cow slaughter faced stiff resistance from
the Congress and Left parties.
The two questioned the authority
of the House to ask the Centre to legislate on the ban when the issue fell
within the state list.
The Congress accused BJP of making
it a political issue, saying that the issue fell neither under Union or
Concurrent lists and, therefore, the House did not have legislative competence.
The BJP's new move to initiate the
change under Article 48 is a rebuttal to Congress where the Centre would
pass a legislation after taking state governments into confidence and generating
a broad consensus.
