Govt-Governor Spat At New High In TN

It has happened yet again. Tamil Nadu Governor R. N. Ravi overstepped his brief on Thursday when he sacked the jailed minister Senthil Balaji without being advised by the Chief Minister M. K. Stalin. Though he retraced his step by keeping the dismissal in abeyance, news reports suggest the latter action followed Union Home Minister’s advice not to proceed with his order.

It is quite well known that ministers hold their positions in the council of ministers and they owe their office to the express will of the chief minister (in states) although the Constitution refers to it as ‘at the pleasure of the Governor’. All that Article 163 of the constitution says is that, it is the chief minister’s prerogative to appoint or remove a minister while the formal letter to the effect is issued by the Governor.

The flip-flop action in quick succession barely hides Mr. Ravi’s penchant to fiddle with the conventions and values associated with the post he holds and attempts to please his masters in Delhi. Controversy is nothing new to Mr. Ravi. He has been consistently attempting to interfere with the executive arm of the government despite knowing full well the operational boundaries within which he ought to be acting.

His speeches have often been laced with political and ideological postulates in a state that is known to cherish and follow distinctive ideas and ideals that bristle with differences with several others. To begin with Mr. Ravi had suggested that ‘Thamizhgam’ would have been a better name for the State. Second, he withheld his consent to several bills the state Assembly had passed, two of them being state’s refusal to introduce NEET for medical admission and the National Education Policy 2020.

The Tamil Nadu government and Governor had been at loggerheads even over a bill that sought to ban online gambling introduced by the government. The bill had been brought in following reports of several cases of suicides by people who lost heavily in bets. The bill had been fashioned on the basis of recommendations given by the Justice Chandru Committee.

The conflict took a bizarre turn when earlier this year, he digressed from the contents of his prepared speech and included his own ideas while addressing the budget session. The skipped portions included names of important leaders such as Periyar, Kamaraj and Dr. Ambedkar and terms edited out of the text had references to Dravidian Model Government, self-respect, inclusive growth, equality, communal harmony and women’s liberation.

The governor stoked controversy by celebrating the ‘Telangana Formation Day” in the Chennai Raj Bhavan. He even talked about the investment climate at the conference of the vice chancellors of universities in the state even though the state occupies the top position in wooing investments from MNCs.

It is not the case that a person of Mr. Ravi’s stature should be reminded of the jurisdiction under which a Governor has to act. He barely needed to be told that governors are merely ‘a Constitutional functionary’ and ‘symbolic head of the States’ and there is little room for assertion on ideas that emanate from their personal idiosyncrasies or are dictated by the central dispensation.