New Delhi: To make way for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s live speech on September 15 for his ‘Swachhata hi Sewa’ campaign, in Pipliya Kulmi village in Rajgarh district, 450 cows were allegedly moved out of a gaushala for the installation of a large television.

According to NewsClick, the actions of the district administration have led to the death of eight cows due to starvation, while several more have fallen ill.

Though the district administration has been allegedly trying to keep the matter quiet, it reportedly moved out all the cows of Naveen Gayatri Gaushala, including very sick ones who were not in a condition to be moved, to build a stage in order to televise the speech. Making the whole exercise more futile was the fact that the telecast only lasted two-three minutes because of poor internet connectivity.

The report also claim that only five or six of the healthiest cows were allowed to remain in the shed for display.

The telecast, which was meant for only 17 handpicked districts, selected for their remarkable work in developing bio electricity or bio fuel, was part of the Modi’s Swachhata hi Sewa’ campaign where the prime minister unveiled the specifics of the Gobardhan Yojana in Delhi. Rajgarh’s Naveen Gayatri Gaushala was the only cow shed from Madhya Pradesh which was selected as it produces high volumes of cow dung which is then used to create biogas.

The cows were moved out a week before the event, and allegedly did not get proper food and water after they were shifted out.

“Since a week, the cows have been locked within the farmers’ mandi where they were neither given proper food nor water which led to the death of eight cows and many more fell ill,” Shyam Tejri, a resident and social worker said. “The cow shed owner and the district administration were busy in the arrangements for conducting the event and forgot the cows.”

In the aftermath of the event, when the story went viral across social media platforms, state Congress chief Kamal Nath took to Twitter to say: “Cows were killed just to hold PM video conferencing, this is BJP’s cow’s love?”