Rahul to raise Maharashtra beef ban in Parliament?

Congress vice president has promised to raise the Maharashtra beef ban issue in Parliament, a beef trader who met him tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.

Mohammed Umar Ansari, who last year filed a petition in the Bombay high court challenging the state government’s Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, submitted a representation (see a copy of the representation here and here) on the subject to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in Mumbai on Saturday. 

Ansari, a professional beef supplier who is into trading in bull and bullocks, met Rahul Gandhi on Saturday afternoon along with other members of the Al Quraish Human Welfare Association and apprised him of the difficulties faced by beef traders and leather processors in Maharashtra in the wake of the law that came into effect after the President’s assent last March.

Ansari said they have also met Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse and gave him a similar representation that sought the revocation of the law that spared bulls and bullocks to from slaughter (cow slaughter was already banned in the state). “He heard us out very patiently,” Ansari said about how the delegation that met Khadse was received by the latter.

“Even Rahul Gandhi said during our brief meeting that he will raise the Maharashtra beef ban in Parliament,” Ansari told Rediff.com.

Ansari said that while they were making all the efforts possible to save the livelihoods of thousands of people associated with the trade in beef, leather, and bull and bullock innards, they were aware that the issue was also a sensitive one and needed a solution that will address the concerns of all involved.

Ansari also said that the arguments in the petition filed by him in the Bombay High Court were over and the judgment in the case would be delivered before January 31 as per the orders of the Supreme Court.