Dharamsala, Dec 19 The main Opposition BJP in Himachal Pradesh on Thursday demanded registration of a first information report (FIR) against those who killed a wildlife-protected bird species and served it at a dinner hosted for Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
Leader of Opposition and former Chief Minister Jairam Thakur led lawmakers of the party and staged a protest over the killing of the bird, the red jungle fowl or "jungli murga", in nature before the onset of the Assembly session in Dharamsala, the state's winter capital.
The species is a protected bird under the Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022. It is a highly endangered species and is being replaced by genetically-mixed jungle fowl.
Carrying placards depicting the photo of the birds, the legislators raised slogans against the government and demanded a probe into the killing of the bird to serve the Chief Minister, his Cabinet colleague Dhani Ram Shandil, officials and party workers.
"Rather than registering a case against those who killed the bird in the wild and who served it at the dinner of the Chief Minister, the government on Wednesday registered the case against the media for reporting the case. It's a strange paradox," Thakur told the media.
The FIR, on the complaint of village pardhan (head) Suman Chauhan in whose house the dinner was served to the visiting Chief Minister, also named Congress turncoat and BJP legislator Sudhir Sharma.
Former Chief Minister Thakur told IANS that they would also raise the issue of illegal killing of the red jungle fowl in the House.
He said: "If the Chief Minister is saying he didn't relish the red jungle fowl as he's a vegetarian, the question is how a wildlife-protected species was killed and its delicacy was mentioned in the official menu of the Chief Minister."
"This clearly indicates that the Chief Minister was aware that jungle fowl was officially part of his dinner menu," the BJP leader said.
This was the second gastronomic trouble for the Chief Minister after "disappearing" samosas.
In a video of the dinner in circulation, the Chief Minister was allegedly heard asking others, including ministers and officials, to try the recipe of the "jungli murga", if they eat non-vegetarian food.
The Chief Minister himself denied that he ate the red jungle fowl. "I didn't eat it, though they were offering it to me," he said.
The Chief Minister was served the dinner at Tikkar, an interior village in Chopal in Shimla district, where he spent the night after attending a public grievance redressal function on December 13.
However, in the video, the Chief Minister was heard saying "he does not eat it".
He asked villagers to serve it to his ministerial colleague Shandil, seated next to him and others. They all were sitting on the floor and eating in a group.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor