Jain leaders announce new party ahead of BMC polls to ‘protect kabootarkhanas’

Religious leaders from the Jain community on Saturday announced that the formation of a new political party, named the Shanti Doot Jankalyan Party, with a pigeon as its symbol, to contest the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, reported Hindustan Times.

The leaders announced that the party would contest the polls, expected to be held by the end of this year, with the agenda of protecting kabootarkhanas, or pigeon feeding spots, according to Mid-Day.

The announcement was made during a prayer meeting for the pigeons that they claimed had died since July, when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation began shutting down designated spots to feed the birds in Mumbai.

An order in this regard was issued by the Maharashtra government to the civic body on July 3.

On July 30, the Bombay High Court, acting on petitions by animal welfare activists, had said that feeding pigeons at kabootarkhanas was becoming a public health hazard affecting children and the elderly.

A bench of Justices GS Kulkarni and Arif Doctor had allowed the municipal corporation to file cases under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita related to public nuisance, negligent acts likely to spread infectious diseases and malignant acts likely to spread life-threatening diseases.

The High Court order had triggered protests in the city.

On August 6, hundreds of persons clashed with the...

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