Narendra Modi raises his voice against cow slaughter

NEW DELHI: BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi has made a not-so-subtle shift in his campaign pitch. A day after Congress chief Sonia Gandhi asked the Muslim community to vote for secularism to defeat Modi, he began talking about cow slaughter, a key Hindutva agenda. Modi in a campaign meeting in Bihar’s Nawada district deplored what he termed the Centre’s encouragement of cow slaughter by subsidising slaughter houses for export of meat.

Export of cow meat is banned in the country and only buffalo meat is exported. But Modi lashed out at the UPA government accusing it of encouraging export of cow meat.

Modi said “the Delhi government doesn’t want any kind of revolution. It wants a pink revolution.” In an attack targeting the Yadav votebank of Lalu Prasad, he said that those backing the UPA should consider whether they want to back a revolution in which they kill livestock.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad unleashed a counter attack claiming that Modi is “trying to ferment trouble between communities, Biharwasis should be careful”. “We must make sure that such a fascist force is shown the door in the state,” he told ET.

Prasad’s core political support stems from a powerful Muslim-Yadav combination, and this appeal on cow slaughter is aimed at fracturing that combine. Slaughterhouses are generally seen as a preserve of Qureshi community among Muslims.