Slaughter ban protest: Vegetarian Kerala MLA eats beef after 19 years [Video]

Kerala has witnessed hundreds of beef festivals across the state in the last week or so, organised by different political organisations, as part of the widespread protests against the Centre's ban on trade of cattle for slaughter.

Now, marking a personal milestone, Congress leader and Thrithala MLA VT Balram has left the vegetarianism he has been practising for the last 19 years to express solidarity with the protests.

Balram, 39, posted a Facebook Live video of him eating beef on Tuesday, with friends and fellow Congress workers, at a gathering in Kochi held to commemorate the 60th anniversary of KSU.

In the video, the Congress leader says that he has been a pure vegetarian by choice since he graduated from college 19 years ago, but since desperate times need desperate measures, he was bringing an end to that streak by eating beef.

"The politics of food should rise as the politics of the state," Balram stressed in the video, which was posted alongside the hashtags #InclusiveIndia and #AgainstBrahmanicalNationalism

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