India's first cow minister Otaram Dewasi loses to an independent candidate

Jaipur, Dec 12: Otaram Dewasi, India's first cow minister lost the Sirohi seat to independent candidate Sanyam Lodha with a margin of 10,253 votes. Otaram Dewasi is a resident of Mundara village under Sumerpur assembly constituency, Pali district.

Dewasi who belongs to Rabaris community, which is associated with animal husbandry was the Chairman of the Animal Husbandry Welfare Board before he was made a minister.

In 2014, Vasundhara Raje set up a cow welfare department in Rajasthan and Dewasi was made the head. He was later elevated as a minister of cow welfare.

With the BJP suffering losses in three key states, its vote share has taken a sharp dip in Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh since the last assembly elections in 2013, but all these votes do not seem to have gone to the Congress alone as other players have also reaped the gains.

The vote share loss is even bigger for the saffron party since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, in which it had virtually swept all the three states by winning 62 out of 65 seats, as per the Election Commission data.