Halal meat New Delhi/IBNS: After the hijab row, Karnataka is likely to be headed for another huge controversy with a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) planning to bring a bill to ban halal meat a year before the state elections, media reports said.
The bill, a private one, is expected to create a storm in the state assembly, which started its winter session on Monday.
The opposition Congress party is set to oppose the bill.
BJP leader Ravi Kumar, a member of the assembly's upper house, is moving the bill privately.
He has claimed that halal certification is done by Muslim bodies that "charge huge fees for certification" and are making huge profits from this.
Stating that the "identity and status" of these Muslim bodies is not clear, the bill proposes that "halal certification be banned, till a recognised is authority appointed".
According to reports, Ravikumar, who is also the general secretary of the state BJP, had earlier written to Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot on the issue.
Controversy over halal meat, where animals are slaughtered according to Islamic religious specifications, started earlier this year, with a BJP leader calling it "economic jihad".
Several right-wing organisations had even called for a boycott of eateries which serve halal meat during the Navratri and Ugadi festivals.
Ahead of Diwali, some right-wing organisations held protests outside multinational food chain outlets like KFC and McDonald's, demanding they should not serve halal-certified meat to non-Muslims.
The Congress, meanwhile, claimed the ban on halal meat is a BJP ploy to detract attention from their misgovernance and the real issues in the state.
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