Chennai: Even as the bitter battle between the DMK government and the Raj Bhavan witnessed the assembly passing a resolution on Monday charging Governor RN Ravi with belittling the dignity of the House and denigrating the supremacy of the legislature, he has accorded assent to the Bill banning online gambling. After the Bill was returned to the Assembly, it was re-adopted, forcing him to approve it.
While the resolution, moved by Chief Minister MK Stalin, was passed in the morning, it emerged late in the afternoon that the Raj Bhavan has given its imprimatur. Nearly 50 persons have committed suicide after losing hefty amounts in online gambling and every such death has provided a handle for the government and political parties to target the Governor. Of all the 14 Bills pending his approval, emotions were whipped up on this one and the governor giving an audience to the E-Gaming Federation (EGF) representatives has put him on the back foot.
Stalin's resolution was preceded by another one by Leader of the House K Duraimurugan to suspend House Rules prohibiting any discussion or reference to the Governor. With the AIADMK staging a walkout much earlier, only the two BJP members present voted against it. It was the first time that the House witnessed a division of votes in many years. This was the second resolution against the Governor and the first one was in January when Ravi departed from the customary address to the legislature, also the first in the history of the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
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The provocation for the resolution was Ravi's statement at an interaction with civil services aspirants last week that withholding a Bill without giving assent was an option available to the Governor as per the Constitution. “It simply means that the Bill has failed through. Bill is Dead and 'withholding' is a decent language for being rejected,” he had said adding that a Governor had to look at whether a legislation transgresses the 'constitutional limit' and legislative competence.
Accusing Ravi of functioning in contravention of the oath of office he has taken and working against the interests of the State, the resolution called upon the President and the Union Government to give necessary instructions to the Governor to give assent to Bills within an appropriate time frame. However, in his speech, the Chief Minister slammed the Governor saying, “I will not say that the governor is ignorant of the Constitution. But, his loyalty to the constitution has been gobbled up by his Political Loyalty. That is why he comments in public on the policy decisions of the government, speaks against secularism enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution, denigrates the feelings of the people of Tamil Nadu, and insults the sovereignty of the legislature which has a 200-year-long history. He has turned the Raj Bhavan into a 'Political Bhavan' by holding a meeting everyday and passing comments.”
Stalin also reiterated that he will not be a mute witness to any attempt to give trouble to the legislature with a political motive. “Overstepping his brief as a governor, he speaks like a politician. And it is habitual for him to speak against the TN government, particularly whenever the Prime Minister visits Tamil Nadu or whenever I visit Delhi to meet him,” he said and recalled Dr BR Ambedkar's view that a governor should function as a constitutional governor without interfering in the working of a state government. The Chief Minister also cited the reports of the Hanumanthiah Commission, Sarkaia Commission and Raja Mannar Commission, and the Venkatachalaiah Commission which had a consultation paper on impeaching the Governor to drive home the point that the Raj Bhavans need to be made accountable.
Finally, Stalin said “subscribing to the view of the DMK founder and late Chief Minister C N Annadurai, who said 'goat doesn't need a beard and so a Governor for a state' but never failed to give due respect to the office till it was there. Neither I nor my government has wavered even a bit on this.”
