Rajasthan BJP holds massive protest as LSD kills thousands of cattle

New Delhi: While protesting against the sloppy handling of contagious Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) that infected over 11 lakh cattle killing 57,000 in Rajasthan, the BJP clashed with the police, breaking cordons in the street in Jaipur.

Alongside staging massive protests today, the BJP has long been raising in the issue in the assembly with a BJP lawmaker bringing a cow outside the house premises to spearhead the protest.

While asking the centre to declare LSD a national calamity, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said the state's priority is to save cows, adding that the centre has to give vaccine and medicine.

The spreading disease has hit hard the state's mainstay dairy industry largely disrupting milk collection in Jaipur.

The prices of sweets have gone up while milk collection at Jaipur Dairy Federation came down by 15-18 percent.

Chief Minister Gehlot, expressing concern over the worrying situation affecting the state's economy, has written to PM Modi seeking aid to counter the disease that has reportedly spread to 13 states.

However there is no vaccine yet to counter the disease and the goat pox vaccine is reportedly found to be effective.

But Rajasthan has only 16.22 lakh doses of the vaccine available, falling hugely short of jabbing large number of cattle in the state.

The situation is going out of hand with 51,000 cattle deaths in the state, putting to risk livestock in the state.