Modi accuses Congress of having double standards on cow protection

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday accused the Congress of adopting double standards on cow protection, saying that while the party talks of bovine protection in Madhya Pradesh, its workers in Kerala slaughtered a calf and claimed eating beef was their right.

Addressing a rally in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara, the home turf of state Congress chief Kamal Nath, Modi said the opposition party had "mastered the art of speaking lies".

He asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi, whom he addressed as "naamdaar" (dynast), to clarify his party's stand on the issue of cow protection.

"The Congress talked about cows to confuse the voters in Madhya Pradesh. They can talk about cows, it is their right. But is Kerala Congress different?" Modi asked.

"In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress manifesto talked about protecting cows, but in Kerala, its workers slaughtered a calf in open and circulated its pictures claiming it was their right to eat beef," he said.

In May last year, Youth Congress activists allegedly publicly butchered a calf in Kerala's Kannur to protest the Centre's ban on sale of cattle for slaughtering.

As the incident triggered protests, the central leadership of the Congress distanced itself from the issue and condemned the act as "thoughtless and barbaric".

Modi also attacked Nath over a purported video of the Congress leader in which he allegedly said that the party only needed candidates who can win and it did not matter if they were corrupt, goons or facing criminal cases.

"Should Madhya Pradesh be saved from such people or not? Should the state go into such hands?" the prime minister asked the people attending the rally.

Polling for Madhya Pradesh's 230-member assembly will be held on November 28.

The incumbent BJP, which has been in power in Madhya Pradesh since 2003, is seeking a fourth straight term in the state.

The Congress is making a concerted bid to return to power in the state which was once its bastion.