Amit Shah defuses row over cow slaughter ban, says restriction was first imposed by Congress in 1976

Panaji: BJP president Amit Shah Saturday said the party was committed to governance that treats all communities equally, while noting it was a Congress government which had imposed a ban on cow slaughter in Goa in 1976. “As far as the issue of beef ban is concerned, it is not the BJP which has imposed that. There is already prohibition on slaughter of cows in Goa (gau hatya bandi),” he said, responding to a question during an interaction with a group of professionals here. “Right from 1976 it has been there, and it was there even when the Congress government was in power, but no one posed questions to the Congress,” he quipped. [caption id=“attachment_3767679” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Amit Shah. PTI[/caption] Responding to a query on the minorities under the BJP rule, Shah said the party has been in power in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan where the population of minorities was more than the overall population of Goa. “Gujarat, MP, Rajasthan have minorities more than the overall population of Goa. There has been no problems in those states,” he said. “I don’t recognise the Sachar Committee but it has given a report that the minority community is most wealthy, educated and employed in Gujarat,” he said. Shah said since its inception, the BJP has followed the ideology of not carrying out governance on the basis of religion, caste or creed. “When Narendra bhai (Prime Minister Modi) says that all the villages in the country will have electrification, that means the electricity would be supplied even to the house of a minority community member,” he said. The BJP leader said when his party talked about providing LPG connections to 5 crore poor people and constructing 4.5 crore toilets, it included members of the minority community. “I believe we should eradicate words like minority and majority from governance. Every citizen should be treated at par, and that is being done by our government,” he added.