Governor RN Ravi kicks up a row on Mahatma Gandhi death anniversary

Chennai: After kicking up a political controversy on Republic Day by derogating the State Government through his address, Governor R N Ravi hit out at the DMK government on Thursday for holding the memorial event on the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi ‘in a corner of a city museum.’
In a message on Raj Bhavan’s X page, the Governor said, ‘Gandhi Mandapam is a grand memorial of the Father of the Nation built over a sprawling land adjacent to the Guindy National Park, Chennai by K. Kamaraj in 1956. Does it make any sense to do Gandhi memorial events - his birthday and martyrdom day in a corner of a city museum?’
Ravi was referring to the government event in memory of the Mahatma held at the museum complex on Thursday when the Chief Minister paid floral tributes to a photograph placed below the pedestal of the Gandhi statue there.
Since the traditional venue, the landmark Gandhi statue on the Marina, where all leaders, including the Chief Minister would pay tributes to the Mahatma had been closed due to the ongoing work for the construction of the next phase of Chennai Metro Rail, the government had chosen the museum as the alternative venue for the event.
But the Governor said, ‘My repeated requests to the Chief Minister to accord due respect to the Father of the Nation and hold such events in a befitting manner at the Gandhi Mandapam met with stubborn refusal.’
Though the State governments had never failed to hold official events to mark the birth and death anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi without fail all these year after the DMK came into power in 1967, Ravi said, ’During his lifetime Gandhi Ji was vigorously opposed and mocked by the followers of Dravidian ideology. But should he continue to be mocked at even today?’
Chief Minister M K Stalin however administered the anti-untouchability oath at the Secretariat to the Government employees after paying tributes to the statue in the museum premises. In his X page, Stalin posted a quote of Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.’