Corruption killing cows in UP, Priyanka writes to Adityanath

In a letter to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Priyanka said she was disturbed seeing the images from Lalitpur. (File)

After a video went viral on social media showing dead cattle allegedly in a cow shelter in Lalitpur’s Saujana town, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday hit out at the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh for “negligence” and “corruption” in running cow shelters in the state and asked it to learn from Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh’s Godhan Nyaya Yojana.

The Lalitpur district administration rejected the allegations, saying only one cow at the shelter had died.

In a letter to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Priyanka said she was disturbed seeing the images from Lalitpur and alleged that the UP government’s efforts to build cowsheds had failed due to corruption. She shared the letter on her Twitter account and claimed that the video was of a cow shelter in Lalitpur.

“I feel disturbed seeing the carcasses of cows in Lalitpur’s Saujana. While there are no details related to the circumstances that led to deaths, the pictures suggest that the cows died a painful death due to lack of fodder and water. What is sadder is that this is not the first such pictures have come to light. Similar instances have taken place in the state before. After coming to power, you (Adityanath) talked about saving cattle and building cow shelters, but the reality is that the government’s efforts have been a failure,” she wrote to the Chief Minister.

उत्तर प्रदेश से आई मृत गायों की तस्वीरों को देखकर विचलित होकर मैं यह पत्र माननीय मुख्यमंत्री, यूपी सरकार को लिख रही हूं। प्रदेश की कई गौशालाओं में यही स्थिति है।

इस समस्या को सुलझाने के मॉडल मौजूद हैं। गौमाता की देखभाल के घोषणाओं के साथ साथ योजनाओं को अमलीजामा पहनाना जरूरी है। pic.twitter.com/XRa0xsoQKW

— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) December 21, 2020

She said that instead of water and fodder, cattle in Uttar Pradesh “only got insensitivity” due to corrupt officers and cowshed operators. “Where the cow shelters are in a bad condition, the situation of stray cattle is terrible. Farmers are completely aghast. They wake up overnight to protect their crops and have to spend thousands and millions to get their field barricaded… Cow is the mother of crores of Indians. The government of Chhattisgarh has implemented the ‘Godhan Nyaya Yojana’ for cows. The UP government can also take inspiration from the scheme,” she wrote.

Congress leader and former Union minister Pradeep Jain Aditya, meanwhile, started a sit-in against alleged “ill-treatment of cows”.

District Administration Annavi Dinesh Kumar later inspected the gaushala asked caretakers to take care of weaker cattle. Kumar suspended the village panchayat officer, the lekhpal and the veterinary officer, and issued directions to take action against the village pradhan over alleged irregularities in running the shelter.

Earlier, he tweeted from the official account of Lalitpur DM, saying that the SDM of Mahrauni inspected the cow shelter in Saujana mandi block in front of local journalists, and did not find any dead cattle inside or outside the shelter. “One head of cattle has died and was buried after autopsy. The viral video is completely false,” the tweet read.

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