Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Shivaji Krishnamoorthy was suspended from his party for unlawful activities on Friday, a day after he made alleged defamatory remarks about Governor RN Ravi, reported the Hindustan Times.
On Friday, Krishnamoorthy had said that if Ravi refuses to utter the name of the father of the Indian Constitution, BR Ambedkar, then he should go to Kashmir so that he could be gunned down by a terrorist.
His comments came after Ravi, in his customary address to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on January 9, had 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.
Following Krishnamoorthy’s remarks, the Tamil Nadu Raj Bhavan filed a complaint with the Chennai Police, stating that the DMK leader has used “foul, abusive, defamatory and intimidatory language” against Ravi.
The development on January 9 in the Assembly was the latest in a string of confrontations between the DMK and the governor.
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
Also read: Raj Bhavans turn BJP office extensions? Why governors are increasingly combative in non-BJP states
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