Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Shivaji Krishnamoorthy on Thursday said that if Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi refuses to utter father of the Indian Constitution BR Ambedkar’s name, then he should go to Kashmir so that he could be gunned down by a terrorist, ANI reported.
His comments came after Ravi, in his customary address to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on Monday, skipped references to Ambedkar, Dravidar Kazhagam founder Periyar, former Tamil Nadu Chief Ministers K Kamaraj and CN Annadurai, as well as the “Dravidian model” of governance while reading out the speech prepared by the state government.
The constitutional convention is that the governor and the president should not depart from the address drafted by the government.
At an event on Thursday, Krishnamoorthy said that had Ravi read the speech properly, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader would have placed flowers on his feet and thanked him with folded hands.
“If the governor refuses to utter the name of Ambedkar, don’t I have the right to hit him with a slipper or not?” he asked later, according to a video shared on Twitter. “If you won’t say his name, you go to Kashmir. We ourselves will send a terrorist so that he will gun you down.”
The Tamil Nadu Raj Bhavan has filed a complaint with the Chennai Police against Krishnamoorthy, PTI reported.
Ravi’s office, providing a copy of the video, said Krishnamurthy has used “foul, abusive, defamatory and intimidatory language” against the governor.
Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party President K Annamalai wrote to the director general of police, alleging that Krishnamurthy is a “renowned DMK abuser”.
He added, “We hope the police do not turn a blind eye again and request that you kindly reprimand Shivaji Krishnamoorthy for abusing the Constitutional head of the State. His remarks must not be construed as freedom of expression as we are sure the police would not deem it that way if the same derogatory language were directed towards the chief minister of the State.”
Reacting to Krishnamoorthy’s comments, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said his party does not expect such a threat from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Monday’s development in the Assembly was the latest in a string of confrontations between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Ravi.
At an event in Raj Bhavan on January 4, the governor had claimed that a “different kind of narrative has been created” in Tamil Nadu.
“Everything applicable for the whole of the country, Tamil Nadu will say no,” he had said. “It has become a habit. So many theses have been written – all false and poor fiction. This must be broken. Truth must prevail.”
He then said that Tamizhagam would be a more appropriate word for Tamil Nadu. The word “Nadu” means land but is also at times interpreted as country or nation-state. Tamizhagam means a region inhabited by the Tamils.
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