Guwahati/Bhopal, July 28: The UPA may have won the trust vote with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s help, but the Samajwadi Party is not yet done appeasing Goddess Kamakhya.
Samajwadi MLA Kishore Samrite — who arrived in the city a day ahead of the trust vote — today said he had sacrificed 13 buffaloes and more than 200 goats at the Kamakhya temple. The sacrifice will continue till July 30.
For the record, Samrite has over 40 cases of murder, loot, kidnapping, criminal intimidation and assaulting government officials on duty against him.
While the SP leader was busy with the rituals, People for Animals (PFA) erupted in anger today, saying it was unbecoming of an elected representative of the people to participate in an ancient ritual soaked in blood. The PFA sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to put a stop to the “madness”. Copies of the memorandum were also sent to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi.
Samrite, who is an MLA from the Lanjhi Assembly constituency in Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh, said the sacrifice at the Shakti shrine was to express their gratitude to the goddess for “ensuring” the victory of the UPA government during the confidence vote.
Samrite said he has been offering puja and animal sacrifice following a party high command directive.
“The puja was offered to Kamakhya for the victory of the UPA government, progress of the Samajwadi Party and to see Mulayam Singh Yadav become the Prime Minister after the next general election,” Samrite told The Telegraph here today.
Samrite’s priest at the Kamakhya, Ranjeet Sarma, said the MLA was offering Dasamahavidya puja for which 15 buffaloes and 317 goats would be sacrificed.
For his long stint in Guwahati, Samrite has even rented a room near the temple.
The members of the PFA took out a rally from its office at Uzan Bazar to the Kamrup (metro) deputy commissioner’s office demanding a stop to this “act of cruelty in the name of religion”.
Chairperson of PFA’s Assam chapter Sangeeta Goswami said, “It is indeed a great shame for all of us that when the country is moving towards nuclear power, some of our politicians have gone back to those days when illiteracy reigned.”
On March 19, 2008, four months before cash reached Lok Sabha, Samrite had stunned Bhopal by claiming that the state Congress had offered him Rs 10 lakh in exchange for his support to Vivek Tankha, a former advocate general of the state and Congress-backed nominee for Rajya Sabha polls.
A calm Samrite showed crisp notes of Rs 1,000 denomination spread on his table at a guesthouse.
When Samrite was elected to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, a big feast followed in his hometown. In the presence of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's son, Akhilesh, Samrite is said to have sacrificed 108 goats in Balaghat.
