New Delhi:
Rahul Gandhi will check out Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, when the festival of Pongal will be celebrated, and witness the controversial bull taming occasion ”Jallikattu”.
The Congress leader will show his help for farmers by watching the occasion organized in Madurai, the party’s Tamil Nadu chief KS Alagiri mentioned today.
“The bull is a symbol of farmers and part of their lives,” he mentioned.
His check out would “honour the farmers and the valorous Tamil culture on the day of the harvest festival, added Mr Alagiri, stressing that the Congress MP would not engage in any election campaign that day.
The party has billed Rahul Gandhi’s visit, months before the Tamil Nadu election, as the “Rahulin Tamizh Vanakkam (Rahul’s Tamil welcome)”. The state is due for elections in April-May.
Mr Gandhi will land in Madurai and devote 4 hours in the temple town.
Jallikattu has been controversial since of allegations of animal cruelty. The Supreme Court in 2014 had banned the bull-taming sport following petitions by the Animal Welfare Board of India and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
The state government, nevertheless, argued that Jallikattu was important to Tamil Nadu’s culture and identity. The ban was removed in 2017 with an amendment to the law immediately after huge protests in Chennai.
The government has permitted the occasion this year with restrictions since of the coronavirus. The quantity of players at any occasion can not be more than 150 and participants need to have a COVID-19 damaging certificate. The quantity of spectators has also been restricted to half.
The DMK-Congress alliance swept the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, winning 37 of the 38 seats in Tamil Nadu and is hoping to repeat it in Assembly elections also.