PORVORIM: Goa animal husbandry minister Mauvin Godinho on Wednesday raised a few eyebrows when he promised to speak to the Center and lobby with the Narendra Modi government to legalise bullfighting (dhirios), a banned sport.

Lawmakers from within the BJP-led coalition government and from the opposition appealed to the state government to explore ways to restart bullfighting, which has been prohibited since the early 1990s.

“I will fight for this actively and lobby in Delhi. This is something which Goans love,” Godinho said after several MLAs brought up the issue during a discussion on grants for the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services department in the Goa legislative assembly .

“Our bullfight is not like the matadors. There they kill bulls. Here, we rear bulls for the fight. It does not amount to cruelty. In fact, bullfight is like boxing,” lone Nationalist Congress Party MLA Churchill Alemao said.

Despite the ban, which was ordered by the Bombay High Court bench in Goa, bullfights continue to be organized clandestinely in several villages in Goa, sometimes with the tacit blessings of the local legislator.

The Goa legislative assembly in 2015 had formed a House Committee to explore ways and means to legalise bullfighting within the ambit of the existing laws related to animal cruelty law.

