Senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala on Thursday attacked the ruling BJP in Haryana, alleging that it does politics in the name of cows but left the animal to its own fate amid the spread of lumpy skin disease. The Rajya Sabha MP said within a month, about 30,000 cows have been infected with the disease in 2,354 villages of 16 districts and 200 of them have died. The cases of lumpy skin disease are increasing and the government has left animals to their own fate, he alleged in a statement. “The BJP government does not know anything except doing politics in the name of Gaumata,” Surjewala alleged.
Surjewala said whenever there is any calamity which befalls on the humans or animals, the BJP-JJP government sits like a mute spectator, leaving them to their own fate. The disease cases have registered a sharp increase but there is no vaccination, doctors and medicines available for treatment of the affected animals, he claimed.
Surjewala said the worst-affected districts include Yamunanagar, Kaithal, Sirsa, Ambala, Kurukshetra, Mahendergarh and Karnal. Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and former Union minister Kumari Selja in their separate statements also attacked the BJP-JJP government over the issue.
Hooda, who is also Leader of the Opposition in the state, said till now necessary urgency to deal with the issue has not been shown by the government. The government should work on a war footing to deal with the lumpy skin disease, he said. Selja, who is a former state Congress chief, also accused the BJP of only doing politics in the name of cows and claimed that the disease is fast spreading in the state and hundreds of cows have died while nearly 30,000 are affected. But the government has so far not been able to run an intensive campaign to control it, she said.
Had the government been serious, the spread of disease could have been prevented, she said. Hooda said the government should put proper emphasis on disease treatment, sampling and vaccination.
“Arrangements should be made to organise medical camps in every village and keep infected animals away from healthy animals,” Hooda said. The former Chief Minister also demanded special grants and compensation for cattle farmers and gaushalas.
“Destitute animals are being taken out from the gaushalas under compulsion due to lack of proper grant from the government,” he said. “We demand that the government give a grant of Rs 50 per day per cow to the gaushalas. If the government does this, then not a single destitute animal will be found on the road,” he said.
Haryana’s Animal Husbandry Minister J P Dalal had on Tuesday said so far 14 districts of the state are affected while no case has been reported in the remaining eight districts. He had said 87 cows have died due to the disease so far. Dalal had said 3 lakh doses of goat pox vaccine had earlier been ordered by Haryana.
“We will need 18-20 lakh more doses,” Dalal had told reporters here after Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Parshottam Rupala on Tuesday reviewed the vaccination of cattle in Punjab and Haryana.
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