TURA: Chief Minister Mukul Sangma has written to his Tripura counterpart Manik Sarkar suggesting that they join hands to take up with the Centre the issue of recent notification on cow slaughter as it is “encroachment” on states’ territory.
Sangma pointed out that like other northeastern states, Meghalaya has 85 per cent indigenous people and cannot afford to ban the sale of cattle for slaughter.
The butchers’ association in Khasi-Jaintia Hills had recently met the chief minister and expressed concerns over the new notification.
The recent central notification seeks to regulate livestock markets under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. Sangma said this is an infringement of the rights of the states to regulate items on List-II of the State List which include cattle market.
“The Union Government should have treaded carefully after due consultations with state governments before proposing changes in the regulation of livestock markets under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act,” said Sangma.
“This piquant situation can lead to a clash of subjects between the Union and state governments, which are clearly delineated in the VIII Schedule to the constitution and does not behold well for healthy federal relations in the larger context of ‘cooperative federalism’ which the Prime Minister espouses so dearly,” added the Meghalaya chief minister in his letter.
He termed the move by the central government to regulate cattle markets under the garb of an environmental regulation as “a complete infringement of the states’ domain which needed to be collectively and strongly resisted”.
“State governments must assert collectively to dissuade the Union Government from such actions which directly dilute the federal structure of our great nation. This notification will set a very wrong precedence in negating the spirit of the federal structure,” cautioned Sangma while calling for the promotion of “cooperative federalism” in true spirit.
