TN govt flays Guv for remark on CM's foreign trip

Press Trust of India

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday took strong exception to Governor R N Ravi's indirect remark on Chief Minister M K Stalin's overseas trip to attract investment to the state and asked him to refrain from using the office of the Raj Bhavan to make political statements.

Describing the Governor's comment that investors will not come merely because they are asked to or in having a talk with them, as a veiled attack on the chief minister who recently undertook a trip to Singapore and Japan, Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu claimed Ravi belittled the foreign visit of Stalin who was striving to improve the economy of the state by attracting foreign investments.

"I think by attempting to criticise our chief minister the Governor has fired a missile at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who as chief minister of Gujarat visited China in 2011 to attract investment for this state," Thennarasu said. Addressing vice-chancellors of state and private universities of Tamil Nadu at the Raj Bhavan in Udhagamandalam on June 5, the Governor said an environment has to be created to attract investors.

"Investors will not come just because we ask them or we go and have a talk. They are hard bargainers. In our country there are many states which are doing it," he had said. Haryana has a foreign direct investment equivalent to Tamil Nadu. "We have to create an ecosystem for global giants for which the essential element is to create competent, appropriately skilled human resources only then we will avail ourselves of the advantage of this opportunity," Ravi had said.

Speaking to reporters here Thennarasu sought to know if the Governor could undermine Tamil Nadu chief minister's overseas visits, would he then accept that Modi's visits to China, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia were similar. Visits to foreign countries by any chief minister were only aimed at improving the state's economy, he said and called upon the Governor to desist from using the office of the Raj Bhavan to make political statements.

Thennarasu, who had been the state industries minister, said the chief minister's two-nation trip resulted in Tamil Nadu clinching investment proposals for over Rs 3,000 crore. Investment apart, Tamil Nadu has been faring better in several sectors including education he said and wondered how the Governor, being the chancellor of universities, could suppress facts on the significant milestones in the education sector