Naypadmasagarji Maharaj says only those candidates who promise to shut the city’s slaughter houses on eight specific days in a year will get the community’s 18 lakh votes.A Jain monk has billed the 2017 BMC elections as a contest between vegetarians and non-vegetarians and declared that only those candidates who promise to shut the city’s slaughter houses on eight specific days in a year will get the community’s 18 lakh votes.Naypadmasagarji Maharaj, who has a large following in the community in the city and across the world, has been mentioning the BMC elections in nearly all his sermons and urging the community to use the polls to build pressure on their representatives to help shut slaughter houses on certain days of the year.The list of the days when the community wants no animal slaughtered in the city is rather exhaustive – two days of Paryushan, Good Friday, Gandhi Jayanti, Ambedkar Jayanti, Mahavir Jayanti, the Independence Day and the Republic Day.Naypadmasagarji Maharaj, founder of the Jain International Organisation that brings together community members from all four sects -- Shwetambar, Digambar, Terapanthi and Stanakvasi – has said that he has already communicated his demand to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.“The community’s sentiments were hurt last year when the shutdown of slaughters houses on two Paryushan days was lifted. We cannot let that happen again. It is a very sensitive matter for us,” he said, adding that he has raised the matter with former Congress MP Milind Deora and Shiv Sena and BJP leaders.In 2015, the controversial lifting of eightday shutdown of slaughter houses in the BJPruled Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation had led to a furore in the community.The ban was then curtailed to two days. In Mumbai too, the BMC shortened the fourday long shutdown to two days after several political parties supported the butchers and meat dealers.“Paryushan is a very important and sacred period for us. All we want is that life should not be culled out of any living being during this time,” Naypadmasagarji Maharaj said.He said the idea behind adding days like Good Friday, the Republic Day, and Ambedkar Jayanti to the list was to make other communities appreciate the sensitivities involved in the matter.Shiv Sena corporator Kishori Pednekar said that the Jains should make such demands only during the Paryushan. “The livelihood of butchers and meat dealers depends on their business. Why should they extend such bans to days that are not of any religious relevance to the Jains,” Pednekar said.The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena spokesperson Sandeep Deshpande also said that the Jains should not push others to stop eating meat. Gulraiz Sharif Qureshi, president of the All India Jamait Ul Quresh, an association of the Qureshi community whose several members are involved in the meat business, termed the demand as “unjust and stubborn”.“We are very sensitive about all religions. We also tell our members to take extra precautions while cutting or handling meat so that it does not hurt any community. But losing business for so many days is unfair,” he said.Meanwhile, Naypadmasagarji said that there are over 30 lakh Jains in Mumbai, of which around 18 lakh are eligible to vote.“I can confidently say that the parties who don’t pay heed to our demand will not get our votes,” he said, adding that he was speaking on behalf of all vegetarians, but just the Jains.Naypadmasagarji in his sessions also said that the increasing number of earthquakes and rising water levels were due to the imbalance caused by the killings of animals. “If the earth has to survive, these mass killings of animals have to be stopped,” he tells his followers, citing example of the BIS (Bajaj-Ibrahim-Singh) Theory that relates earthquakes to excessive animal killings.While not much is known about this theory, the monk explained that the scientists from three different communities carried out intense research to explain a correlation between animal slaughter and earthquakes.