Resolution in support of Jallikattu, legal action against PETA: AIADMK

Chennai: Amidst protests across Tamil Nadu for permission to conduct jallikattu, ruling AIADMK on Wednesday said a resolution would be adopted in the coming session of the state assembly seeking the lifting of the ban on the bull taming sport.

It also vowed to initiate legal steps against "foreign" animal rights NGO PETA to prevent it from engaging in activities "inimical" to Tamil culture.

AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala also lashed out at Congress, her party's arch rival DMK, and the BJP over failure to conduct the sport while lauding the students and youngsters for carrying out peaceful protests across the state.

The AIADMK government, she said, was making "determined" efforts for allowing the sport and had approached the Centre for removing the ban imposed by the Supreme Court in 2014 and upheld last year by it.

"Above all, while recognising the sentiments of students, youth and the people of Tamil Nadu, I firmly state that we will move and unanimously adopt a resolution seeking completely removing the ban on jallikattu in the ensuing Assembly session," Sasikala said in a statement.

In the 234-member house, DMK is the main opposition party with 89 MLAs, besides its allies Congress and IUML.

The Assembly is scheduled to meet next week with the customary Governor's address on January 23.

Sasikala also trained her guns on People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which has come under severe criticism from jallikattu supporters for its opposition to the bull taming sport.

"We will make legal efforts to prevent PETA, a foreign organisation, from involving in activities inimical to the cultural pride of Tamil Nadu," she added.

Targeting the opposition, Sasikala said it was under the UPA government, in which DMK was a key constituent, that jallikattu had been banned.

"It is a known fact that it was the UPA, in which DMK was a constituent, which was instrumental in the Supreme Court banning jallikattu," she said.

The ministers in the subsequent BJP government and the party's state unit also gave repeated assurances since coming to power in 2014 that jallikattu would be conducted in Tamil Nadu, but "three Pongals (in three years) have passed, but the ban has not been removed," she said.

This had led to the present state-wide agitation, she said.

Sasikala said that despite being in power at the Centre and in the state then, DMK had not made any effort to prevent the ban by not objecting to bulls being included in the performing animals category by the UPA government which eventually led to the sport being proscribed.

She said only the AIADMK has been consistent in its stand seeking the lifting of the ban, she added.

"The Tamil community also knows that it was the Congress-DMK rule which gave legal recognition to PETA," she said.

She recalled Jayalalithaa's statement that "rules were meant for people and not vice-versa" and said it was the late leader's long-time desire that the two houses of Parliament debated it and brought an amendment for lifting the ban on jallikattu.

Jayalalithaa had taken up the matter many times with the Centre and the present BJP government should pay heed to the pleas of the "great people's leader," she said.