When SAD patriarch late Parkash Singh Badal asked Modi for Gir cow

New Delhi, February 24

Parkash Singh Badal, the late chief minister of Punjab and Shiromani Akali Dal patriarch had once asked then BJP Gujarat leader Narendra Modi for a “Gir” cow, a high milk yielding variety.

This was shared by PM Modi in an interaction with the beneficiaries of Varanasi’s Banas dairy under which several women have been given Gir cows to become part of the Banas dairy cooperative movement.

“I had very good relations with Parkash Singh Badal ji. I was not chief minister at the time. He asked me for a Gir cow and later when I became CM and met for one of the gatherings he told me that Gujarat’s cows are also like Gujarat’s people. They don’t hurt anyone,” Modi said in his reminiscences to the women who spoke of how the arrival of Gir cows had brought economic prosperity to their homes as they were selling milk at a much higher rate to the cooperative.

Many women said the arrival of cows had ended their day to day woes and that the cows had become a part of their families.

PM instructed officials to send the money from milk sales to the accounts of women and asked them, “Will women bless Modi?”

The overwhelming response was “Yes.”

The interaction was part of Modi’s women empowerment plan. He has called women one of the four castes that will form the pillar of Viksit Bharat.