India's first "
cow minister" and "
happiness minister" lost elections in
Rajasthan and
Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP lost power to the Congress yesterday. Otaram Dewasi, the first head of Rajasthan's cow ministry, lost by 10,000 votes to an independent candidate, while Lalsingh Arya, the state minister in charge of India's only "happiness ministry", lost his seat by 25,000 votes to a Congress candidate in Madhya Pradesh.
Hindus consider cows sacred and the BJP has campaigned for their protection at state and national levels, and introduced harsh penalties for mistreating them. But the cause has spawned cow vigilantism in parts of India.
Rajasthan, bordering Pakistan, has witnessed some incidences of cow lynchings in recent times, including the brazen beating to death of a dairy farmer on a busy highway last year.
Rajasthan created India's first ministry exclusively for cow protection in 2015 when the BJP won elections and appointed Dewasi, a policeman turned politician, to be in charge.
He imposed a 20 percent surcharge on new property purchases -- dubbed a "cow tax" -- to generate cash to run the 2,300 shelters in his state for abandoned cows. He also branded hundreds of thousands of cows under his care to stop them being smuggled.
But his reputation was marred in 2016 when 500 cows starved to death at a state-run shelter when the facility was flooded during heavy rains.
In August, 28 more died from poisoning, further denting his image as a sacred custodian in a state where cow slaughter comes with 10 years jail.
The BJP campaigned for the
Rajasthan elections on tougher laws for cow slaughter and more money for shelters -- but was defeated by the Congress Party in results announced Tuesday.
Voters in Madhya Pradesh booted out Lalsingh Arya, the state minister in charge of India's only "happiness ministry", after a scandal-ridden term.
The ministry he helped set up in 2017 was modelled on the "gross national happiness" index used in Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan country, to measure the wellbeing of its citizens.
But weeks after it was inaugurated, Arya was on the run, accused of murdering a political rival in 2009. He was eventually arrested, and his trial is ongoing.