The Tamil Nadu government led by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M.K. Stalin and the state’s governor, R.N. Ravi, continued their dispute after the governor rejected the former’s suggestion to give a jailed minister’s portfolios to other cabinet ministers.
After searching V. Senthil Balaji’s Chennai and Karur properties on June 13, the Enforcement Directorate arrested him on June 14. Balaji had a coronary angiography the same day, and physicians advised emergent bypass surgery.
The Hindu said that CM Stalin wrote to Governor Ravi to assign Balaji’s ministries to finance minister Thangam Thennarasu and housing minister S. Muthusamy.
Ravi wrote to Stalin that Stalin’s portfolio reallocation justification was “misleading and incorrect”.
Ravi and Stalin have a long history.
K. Ponmudy, Stalin’s higher education minister, held a news conference on June 15 and stated that Stalin immediately wrote back to Ravi stating portfolio distribution is the chief government’s discretion. The governor’s rejection violates the constitution and state autonomy.
The Governor, who should know the constitution, should have approved the Chief Minister’s portfolio reallocation suggestion. “But the Governor is acting like the agent of the BJP government at the Centre,” Ponmudy told NDTV.
“Was home minister Amit Shah sacked?” He inquired.
Ravi warned in April that if a governor refuses to sign an assembly-passed bill, the “Bill is dead”.
Ravi dubbed himself the “Tamizhaga Aalunar” or “Tamizhagam governor” in the Raj Bhavan’s formal Pongal invites in January and substituted the state government’s insignia with the Union government’s.
Ravi’s suggestion to rename the state “Tamizhagam” and ignoring parts of the governor’s presentation to the Tamil Nadu parliament were already causing uproar.
Newspaper editorials questioned the governor’s conduct.
