‘Not a namoona CM’, says Adityanath defending crackdown on slaughterhouses in UP
Adityanath defended his government’s crackdown on illegal slaughter houses in the state and said that vegetarians were not inferior to non-vegetarians.
UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath said many had initially thought that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had nominated ‘namoona’ (an oddity or maverick) as CM but indicated that it wasn’t the case.

As proof, Adityanath defended his government’s crackdown on illegal slaughter houses in the state and said that vegetarians were not inferior to non-vegetarians.
“When I was named CM many thought PM Modi had nominated a namoona CM,” Adityanath said at the BJP working committee meeting and then highlighted his government’s crackdown on illegal slaughter houses to indicate that this wasn’t the case.
“Majority of my cabinet colleagues are vegetarian. They begin the day between 6 am to 7 am and end it around past midnight. I asked those who came up to me with ‘the-non-vegetarian-is-healthy’ argument to decide if me and my mostly pure vegetarian ministers were in any way inferior to non vegetarians?,” he asked at the UP BJP working committee meet, the first since the party’s spectacular win in 2017 UP polls.
Adityanath said that the crackdown on illegal slaughter houses in UP were part of National Green Tribunal (NGT) order that wasn’t honoured by the previous governments.
“Neither was the 2014 NGT order and 2017 apex court order followed by the previous government. We decided to implement it. When we did various arguments were put before us, from employment to health. We said nothing doing. The orders would be followed in letter and spirit and only those slaughter houses that follow orders would be allowed to operate,” he said.
The BJP had maintained during the campaign for the assembly elections that it would shut down all slaughterhouses in the state. Eventually, it ordered the shutdown of illegal ones.
ABOUT THE AUTHORManish Chandra PandeyManish Chandra Pandey is a Lucknow-based Senior Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times’ political bureau in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Along with political reporting, he loves to write offbeat/human interest stories that people connect with. Manish also covers departments. He feels he has a lot to learn not just from veterans, but also from newcomers who make him realise that there is so much to unlearn.Read More

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