The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has urged “like-minded” MPs across all parties in Tamil Nadu to sign a memorandum addressed to the president of India seeking to remove the state’s governor RN Ravi.
In a letter to all political parties, TR Baalu, the leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Parliament, requested the leaders to sign the memorandum by Thursday. The Congress has agreed to sign the memorandum, while other parties have not decided on it yet, The Hindu reported.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam reached out to the MPs two days after 11 political parties issued a joint statement criticising Ravi’s recent comment that every country was dependent on one religion or the other and India was not an exception, the Deccan Herald reported.
Since Ravi took over as Tamil Nadu governor in September last year, he has been in the middle of multiple controversies and run-ins with the MK Stalin-led government.
In February, he had returned a Bill to the Assembly for reconsideration after it passed a proposal to exempt Tamil Nadu students from taking the National Entrance cum Eligibility Test, or NEET, for admission to undergraduate medical courses.
The Bill had proposed that admission of students to medical courses be carried out based on Class 12 examination results.
The question paper of NEET is based on the Central Board of Secondary Education syllabus, which is different from the Tamil Nadu state board’s academic curriculum. Tamil Nadu has been opposing the examination on the grounds that a common entrance test would harm the prospects of state board students.
In June, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had accused Ravi of undermining his constitutional authority after he said that sanatan dharma – a term often used by Hindutva supporters – upholds unity in diversity, according to The Times of India.
In August, he again courted controversy saying that there should be zero tolerance towards violence and “anyone who uses a gun should be dealt with a gun”.
Before his stint in Tamil Nadu, Ravi was the governor of Nagaland and acted as the Centre’s interlocutor for the Naga peace talks. Differences had emerged between the Centre and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), with the latter demanding Ravi’s removal as the interlocutor in 2020.
The group, which had signed a peace treaty and started a dialogue with the government on the matter of a sovereign homeland in 1997, had accused Ravi of creating tensions among the parties involved in the negotiations.
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