ISKCON sends defamation notice to Maneka Gandhi over ‘selling cows’ remarks

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) has sent a legal notice to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Maneka Gandhi on Friday for her alleged controversial remarks.

This comes after a video of her speech surfaced online in which she purportedly said that the ISKCON was selling cows to butchers.

The defamation notice sent by ISKCON through an advocate of the Calcutta high court on Friday has asked the BJP MP to immediately withdraw the remarks unconditionally and issue an unconditional apology.

“If you fail to take the steps within a period of seven days from the date of receipt of this notice, my instructions are to initiate appropriate actions against you to recover compensation and damages, which my client reasonably estimates to be about ₹100 crore without further reference to you,” the legal notice sent by the ISKCON’S Kolkata office said.

Earlier this week, Gandhi, who is an animal rights activist, called the organisation the “biggest cheat” in the country and alleged that the ISKCON sells cows from their gaushalas (cowsheds) to butchers.

“They establish gaushalas and get benefits from the government. They also get huge land…. I visited their Anantpur gaushala. Not a single dry cow was present. All were dairies. No calf was there either which means all cows were sold. So ISKCON is selling their cows to butchers. No one has sold as many cows to butchers as ISKCON did. If these people can do it, what about the others?” Gandhi purportedly said in the video.

A dry cow is one that has not been milked.

HT hasn’t checked the authenticity of the video which surfaced earlier this week.

ISKCON has around 40 million followers in India alone.