New Delhi: Final week, the Tamil Nadu Raj Bhavan issued a press release saying that Governor R.N. Ravi had not agreed to having Electrical energy and Excise Minister V. Senthil Balaji, who has been arrested on cash laundering prices, proceed within the cupboard.
“The Hon’ble Governor has not agreed to V. Senthil Balaji persevering with any longer as a Minister of the Council of Ministers, as he’s going through prison proceedings for ethical turpitude and is at the moment in judicial custody,” the Raj Bhavan stated in a press release.
The assertion got here after the Tamil Nadu authorities underneath Chief Minister M.Ok. Stalin reassigned Senthil’s portfolio citing his “ill-health”. Final week, quickly after his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Senthil was taken ailing and was suggested a coronary heart bypass surgical procedure.
Within the confrontation that ensued, Tamil Nadu’s Greater Schooling Minister Ok. Ponmudy accused Governor Ravi of “appearing like a BJP agent”.
However this isn’t the primary deadlock between the state’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) authorities and Ravi, a former IPS officer who has served because the particular director of the Intelligence Bureau and had previously been the governor of Nagaland earlier than being appointed as Tamil Nadu’s governor in September 2021.
Within the almost two years since his appointment, there have been a number of such standoffs over a wide range of points, together with the delay in approving payments handed by the meeting, the governor’s numerous controversial remarks, and even Stalin’s official go to to Singapore in Could.
ThePrint takes a have a look at Ravi’s numerous run-ins with the DMK authorities.
Additionally Learn: ‘Don’t provoke DMK employees’ — Stalin’s ‘warning’ to BJP after Senthil Balaji’s arrest
Senthil’s arrest, anti-NEET invoice
Within the early hours of 14 June, Karur strongman Senthil was arrested in a cash-for-jobs rip-off after 18 hours of questioning and was ultimately despatched to judicial custody till 28 June.
In line with the ED, Senthil allegedly “misused” his workplace and “engineered” a job racket rip-off within the state transport undertakings in 2014-15. The case allegedly goes again to his tenure because the state’s transport minister within the then All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) authorities.
Quickly after his arrest, nonetheless, he was admitted to a hospital after complaining of chest ache and was suggested coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgical procedure for triple vessel illness.
And though Governor Ravi rejected the state authorities’s cause for reallocating Senthil’s portfolios, he accepted its advice to reassign electrical energy and non-conventional power growth to finance and human useful resource administration minister Thangam Thennarasu and the division of prohibition and excise to housing and concrete growth minister S. Muthusamy.
Ravi’s tussles with the DMK authorities, although, date again to 2021 — mere months after he was first appointed to the state.
Whereas CM Stalin, whose authorities had swept into energy solely 4 months earlier than, had welcomed his appointment, allies such because the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) noticed an “ulterior motive” behind it.
However quickly, tensions started to rise, with the Tamil Nadu authorities’s anti-Nationwide Eligibility cum Entrance Check (NEET) Invoice turning into the primary flash level. Known as the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Diploma Programs Invoice, 2021, the laws seeks to exempt Tamil Nadu’s college students from the NEET, an all-India pre-medical entrance check that Tamil Nadu has lengthy seen as a thorn in its facet.
First handed within the Tamil Nadu Meeting on 13 September, 2021, the invoice was despatched to the governor for his assent the identical month. As accusations that the governor was stalling grew, Ravi returned the invoice in 2022. It was readopted by the meeting in February 2022.
Amid this row, nonetheless, Ravi praised the NEET on the Republic Day operate on 26 January that 12 months.
“Earlier than the introduction of NEET, the share of scholars from authorities colleges to the seats in authorities medical faculties was hardly 1 per cent. Due to the affirmative motion of seven.5 per cent reservation for presidency faculty college students, that quantity has improved considerably,” he had stated then.
That speech didn’t go effectively with the DMK — in its mouthpiece Murasoli on 29 January, the social gathering denounced the governor’s phrases saying, “If Ravi considered doing politics by clinging on to a giant brother angle, it will do him good to grasp that it’s going to not succeed and Tamil Nadu shouldn’t be Nagaland.”
The difficulty started to warmth up as soon as once more in April that 12 months, when CM Stalin and his ministers boycotted Ravi’s ‘At Dwelling’ tea social gathering held to mark Tamil New Yr citing the governor’s reluctance to signal a number of payments handed by the state meeting, together with the anti-NEET invoice.
The difficulty of the pending payments cropped up but once more this 12 months — on 4 Could Tamil Nadu Industries Minister Thangam Thennarasu stated the governor was but to log out on as many as 17 payments — seven from earlier classes and 10 from the meeting session concluded in April.
However pending payments weren’t the one explanation for friction between the governor and the DMK authorities. The automotive explosion in Coimbatore in October 2022 that killed one individual additionally led to a war-of-words between the governor and the DMK.
Days after the incident, Ravi questioned the “delay” in handing over the probe to the Nationwide Investigation Company — the federal company mandated with investigating terror instances.
“The incident that occurred a couple of days again within the district, was an try to unleash a significant terror assault….The amount of explosive materials that was discovered later and IED-making chemical compounds and substances have been sufficient to counsel that they (the terrorists) had deliberate a collection of assaults,” Ravi stated throughout an tackle on the J.S.S. Institute of Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences & Hospitals, in keeping with The Hindu. “The query is, when the Tamil Nadu police acquired the suspects inside hours, why did it take greater than 4 days to herald the NIA?”
In its response, the DMK authorities claimed that the NIA had at all times been a part of the police investigation and that the governor was doing “politics” with the problem.
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‘Sanatana Dharma’ and ‘Tamizhagam’
Ravi’s numerous controversial statements on Sanatana Dharma and Tamil tradition have added to tensions with the ruling authorities.
At an occasion at Ramakrishna Mission College students’ Dwelling and the Residential Excessive Faculty in Chennai in June final 12 months, Ravi claimed: “The backbone of Bharat is Sanatana Dharma, and this dharma has to rise for the great rise of Bharat”.
The remark drew extreme backlash from a number of quarters of the state, together with from the DMK, which noticed this as an try to push the agenda of the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP) and its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Tamil Nadu.
In a press release he issued, DMK treasurer T.R. Baalu claimed that though the governor was entitled to his spiritual perception, he ought to chorus from supporting the “Sanatana Dharma and the varnashrama (The Varna system)” as a constitutional authority.
Ravi equally drew the DMK’s ire in January this 12 months, when he referred to Tamil Nadu as “Tamizhagam”.
For context, Tamil Nadu initially means Tamil ‘land’, now additionally learn as ‘Tamil nation’. ‘Tamizhagam’, then again, means the ‘abode’ or ‘land’ of the Tamil folks and was the title of the traditional Tamil nation.
At a programme in Raj Bhavan on 4 January, Ravi claimed {that a} “totally different type of narrative has been created” in Tamil Nadu.
“Every thing relevant for the entire of the nation, Tamil Nadu will say no. It has grow to be a behavior. So many theses have been written — all false and poor fiction. This have to be damaged. Fact should prevail. Tamizhagam is a extra applicable phrase to name it. The remainder of the nation suffered lots of devastation by the hands of foreigners for a very long time,” he had stated in his speech.
This, too, kicked up a storm, not solely in political circles but additionally on social media, the place the hashtags #TamilNadu and #GetOutRavi trended.
In a strongly-worded response, DMK stated the governor’s feedback on “Aryan, Dravidian, Thirukural and colonial rule are blatant and harmful”.
“His intention is to take the state again to the Varnashrama interval,” the DMK stated in a press release. “He has stated {that a} false narrative has been fed to the folks of Tamil Nadu previously 50 years. What’s the situation of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh after fifty years in comparison with Tamil Nadu? Tamil Nadu contributes 9.22 per cent to the GDP of India.”
Regardless of these criticisms, nonetheless, Ravi continued to confer with the state as Tamizhagam — an official invite from the Raj Bhavan for pongal celebrations referred to him as Tamizhaga Aalunar (the governor of Tamizhagam).
However even earlier than this controversy died down, Ravi discovered himself in the course of one more one. At the beginning of the primary meeting session of the 12 months, Ravi skipped parts of a speech ready for him by the state authorities. These omitted parts contained, amongst different issues, references to Tamil Nadu as a “haven of peace” and the point out of a number of the state’s tallest leaders reminiscent of E.V Ramasamy ‘Periyar’, and former chief ministers Ok. Kamaraj, C.N. Annadurai, and M. Karunanidhi.
As Stalin moved a decision insisting that the governor learn the entire of the ready speech, sources at Raj Bhavan advised ThePrint that the elements that have been disregarded have been principally praises of the state authorities and never “factual particulars”.
Important amongst these “skipped elements” was DMK’s reference to the “Dravida mannequin” of governance.
Stalin’s international go to
The most recent level of rivalry between the governor and the DMK authorities was M.Ok. Stalin’s go to to Singapore and Japan final month.
The chief minister claimed that his authorities had signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) value Rs 3,000 crore throughout this go to. He additionally claimed that corporations had expressed their willingness to participate within the International Buyers Meet that might be held in January 2024.
Ravi, nonetheless, remained unconvinced.
“Buyers received’t come simply because we ask them to, or we go and have a chat,” he stated, including that for this, the state must construct an ecosystem to draw international company giants.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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