Chennai: The scattered voices of dissent against Governor R N Ravi were channeled into an united protest on Wednesday with leaders of the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) joining hands to make an open demand for the Governor’s resignation and the DMK calling all MPs of the alliance to sign in the memorandum to the President seeking Ravi’s withdrawal from Raj Bhavan.
While the Leader of the DMK party in Parliament, T R Baalu, invited all MPs of DMK and like-minded parties to visit Anna Arivalayam to read and sign the memorandum before Thursday, 11 leaders of SPA parties urged the Governor to either step down from the post before making anti-Constitutional statements or stop making controversial remarks.
The governor’s remarks, they said, were being made to create needless controversies with a view to either cause confusion among the people or to keep the limelight focused on him, the leaders said in their statement.
Ravi’s public averments on Sanatana Dharma, Aryanism, Dravidianism, Scheduled Caste people and Thirukural were dangerous and that it was not proper on his part to express his retrograde views while holding the Constitutional post of Governor, they said, adding that his religious beliefs were not a matter of concern at all to them.
They pointed out that the Governor’s statements like India was ‘not a secular country’ and remarks denigrating the Preamble of the Constitution were in violation of the oath of office that he had taken and that he did not know either world history or the Constitution.
Refuting Ravi’s claim that no country in the world was secular, the leaders said that of the 195 nations affiliated to the UN, only 30 are fully religious and 120 nations have declared themselves as secular. Even Nepal that was once a Hindu nation had become a secular country, they said.
Those signed the statement were Baalu, K Veeramani (DK), K S Alagiri (Congress), Vaiko (MDMK), K Balakrishnan (CPM), R Mutharasan (CPI), Kadar Moideen (IUML), Thol Thirumavalavan (VCK), M H Jawaharuillah (MMK), E R Easwaran (KMDK) and T Velmurugan (TVK).
The DMK party, which had been coming down heavily on the Governor for his various acts and remarks for quite some time, too, launched yet another broadside against him through an editorial in its party organ, ‘Murasoli,’ under the title ‘Inke Ithu Vendam.’ (Not This, Here)
The Editorial said that the Governor was propagating Aryan scriptures through his speeches and it would not have any acceptance in the State. He was speaking about things that happened after the Aryan invasion in India while Tamil society had existed much before that adhering to its own set of values and ethics, it said.
If Ravi had held such views in his youth, he would not have opted to join the IPS but pursued a different path in life and that he had been unleashed in the State now to sow the thoughts of Vedic fanaticism that were opposed to the traditional ideals and principles of Tamil society, the editorial said, stressing on the need to throw him out of the job.
TNCC President Alagiri, too, issued a separate statement calling upon all secular forces to unite and face the emergency situation that had arisen and said that the people of the State were aware the love for Tamil professed both by Ravi and BJP State President K Annamalai was fake.
Recalling the opposition that he had expressed to the appointment of Ravi as Governor when his name was announced, he said Ravi, through his actions had made every fear of his come true.
Accusing the Governor of revealing his RSS connections and pointing out that he had not sent 18 Bills passed by the State Assembly, including the one seeking exemption from NEET, to the President for consent, Alagiri said, ‘The cats are out, it is time to bell them.’
