The municipal corporation in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi has approved a proposal to have meat and fish shops relocated to the outskirts of the city, The Hindu reported on Sunday.

Around 350 to 400 meat and fish shops operate in the city, Varanasi Municipal Corporation’s Public Relations Officer Sandeep Srivastava was quoted as saying.

During a meeting of the corporation’s governing body on Saturday, Municipal Commissioner Himanshu Nagpal said that the shops would be shifted to five locations: Ramnagar, Sujabad, Ganeshpur, Avleshpur and Shivpur.

The move was intended to improve sanitation and optimise the operation of such markets while ensuring that consumers continue to have access to meat and fish shops, PTI quoted unidentified officials as saying.

However, the Congress said that the decision was unconstitutional.

“Such a decision goes against the right to livelihood, which is the fundamental right to earn a living with dignity, and it amounts to depriving a large population of their means of survival,” Congress national secretary Shahnawaz Alam was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

Alam contended that the move was part of a broader design to “impose uniformity on the Hindu society”.

Ahead of Bakrid, the Varanasi Municipal Corporation had closed down a decades-old goat market in the city, claiming that it had received complaints about overcrowding and poor sanitation.

Bakrid, also known as Eid al-Adha, is a Muslim festival that commemorates the spirit of sacrifice. The festival, which is traditionally marked by the slaughtering of goats, was observed on May 28.

Similar restrictions on the sale of meat have been proposed in other cities as well.

In April, the Haridwar Municipal Corporation approved a proposal to ban the sale of raw meat within city limits ahead of the Ardh Kumbh. The 45-day-long Ardh Kumbh will begin on January 14, 2027, the day of the Hindu festival of Makar Sankranti.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.