Chennai: Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi has courted controversy once again and is at the centre of a political storm.
In the latest row, the man who faced Supreme Court’s ire for withholding 10 bills passed by Tamil Nadu Assembly urged students at a private engineering college in Madurai to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’.
The Governor, who was chief guest at a college function on Saturday, ended his speech with an unexpected call to students.
“On this day, let us pay tribute to the one who was a great devotee of Shri Ram. I would say and you would say ‘Jai Shri Ram’,” said Ravi, as students repeated the chant.
Slamming Ravi, the ruling DMK called him an RSS spokesperson.
“This goes against the secular values of the country. Why does the Governor time and again want to violate the Constitution. Why has he not resigned yet? He is an RSS spokesperson. We know how he violated the federal tenets of the country and how Supreme Court has shown him his place,” DMK spokesperson Dharanidharan said.
Congress MLA Aassan Maulaana also condemned the Governor’s act.
“The Governor occupies one of the highest posts in the country, but he is speaking like a religious leader. He has become a propaganda master of the RSS and the BJP. See, this is not the way the Governor can act,” the Velachery MLA told ANI.
“What the TN Governor is doing is highly condemnable; he is acting like an RSS face in Tamil Nadu and spreading its ideology. The position he holds is a constitutional post, so he has to remain neutral,” the Congress leader added.
The Supreme Court recently declared Ravi’s decision to withhold 10 bills passed by the state Assembly as “illegal” in a landmark ruling.
The top court ruled that Governors cannot indefinitely delay action on bills, calling such inaction unconstitutional.
It marked a significant victory for the MK Stalin-headed state government, which has been at loggerheads with Governor Ravi for months and years.
