2 min readJaipurSep 24, 2016 02:09 AM IST
First published on: Sep 24, 2016 at 02:09 AM IST
An article in the RSS mouthpiece, Panchjanya, has cornered the BJP-led government in Rajasthan over the death of thousands of cows at the state-run Hingonia Goshala over the last few months even as it gave credit to the “selfless service” of RSS volunteers in handling the crisis. Written by Ishwar Bairagi, the article also punches holes in the state government’s main line of defence at the time — that Hingonia Goshala in Jaipur was a rehabilitation centre, and not a cowshed. “When the controversy intensified, the ruling party shifted the burden of its failure on to the administration,” the article says. “Amid all this, there was one aspect which was not talked about… the selfless service rendered by volunteers of RSS in the aftermath of the tragedy.”
Having become synonymous with extreme negligence, the cattle shed came back to life because of the hard work of the Swayamsewaks, the article says.
This is not the first time the RSS has attacked Vasundhara Raje’s BJP government in Rajasthan. Last year, the Sangh had backed a major agitation against the government over the demolition of temples in Jaipur’s walled city.
As part of a damage control move, several ministers in the Raje government had at the time called the facility a cattle “rehabilitation centre” instead of a cowshed.
“Those who made tall statements, had they asked their party workers to offer service at the Goshala, some more cows could have been saved,” the RSS’s kshetra prachar pramukh Mahendra Singhal was quoted as saying in the article.
The incident hurt the sentiments of “gau bhakts” across the country, prant Sanghachalak Ramesh Agarwal said. He urged the Raje government to work towards preventing a similar recurrence in future.
In the Panchjanya article, Ishwar Bairagi argued, “It may be a rehabilitation centre in government records (but) the community knows it as a Goshala. There are more cows here because while people sell off other animals to butchers, they can’t do so with cows due to legal hurdles and religious feelings.”
Share
