New Delhi: Swami Akhileshwaranand Giri, who was recently elevated to a cabinet minister rank by the Madhya Pradesh government, has appealed to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to create a cow ministry. He has said that the institution of such a ministry would be in the best interest of the state, according to an NDTV report.Akhileshwaranand Giri, chairman of the Cow Protection Board, said that the chief minister would inspire future generations if cows in the state were taken care of in the same manner that “Mr Chouhan looked after cattle at his home”. A cow ministry would help create a “golden Madhya Pradesh” and would set a precedent for other states, he said, adding that gaushalas or cow shelters across the state could act as nodal points for day-to-day functioning of the ministry.Swami Akhileshwarand. Credit: Twitter/ANISwami Akhileshwaranand, who has been head of the Cow Protection Board since 2016, said that cows must no longer be classified under the Animal Husbandry department and they should exclusively come under the domain of the cow ministry; he said that 96,000 square kilometres of jungle area in the state could serve as a resting spot for cows.He told ANI that he had previously spoken to Chouhan regarding this matter. “He (the chief minister) told me that he will restore all the cow-houses, and there will be no shortage of funds, there just needs to be the willpower and commitment towards the cause. Now I am even more hopeful as he was made the chairman of National Agriculture and MGNREGA committee,” ANI quoted Akhileshwaranand.It seems that cow protection has become a matter of primary concern for the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh. Several BJP leaders have emphasised the need to save and revere cows as more than just animals. Last year, BJP president Amit Shah had said that the government was considering forming a cow ministry. A few months before Shah’s comments came, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman remarked that cow protectionism was the spirit behind India’s freedom movement. Gyan Dev Ahuja, a BJP MLA from Alwar, Rajasthan, reportedly said that if someone engaged in cow smuggling or slaughtered a cow, he would be killed.