Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi asks students to chant Jai Shri Ram at college event in Madurai, sparks row – Tamil Nadu News
Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi has sparked a row after he asked students to chant Jai Shri Ram while addressing an event at an engineering college in Madurai. A video of him making the appeal to the students as a way to honour an ancient poet who wrote Kamba Ramayanam, has gone viral.
“On this day, let us pay tribute to the one who was a great devotee of Shri Ram. I would say and you would say Jai Shri Ram,” he said on Saturday as students were heard repeating the chant.
Governor Ravi’s remarks did not go well with the ruling DMK, that called him a spokesperson for the RSS.
“This goes against the secular values of the country. Why does the Governor time and again wants to violate the Constitution. Why has he not resigned yet? He is an RSS spokesperson. We know how he violated the federal tenets of the Country and how Supreme Court has shown him his place,” DMK spokesperson Dharanidharan said.
Meanwhile, Congress MLA Aassan Maulana slammed Governor Ravi for his Jai Shri Ram pitch and said he was speaking like a religious leader “who is promoting a religious ideology”.
“He is in one of the highest posts in this country. He is speaking like a religious leader, which is bringing trouble to this nation. India has diverse religions, diverse languages and diverse communities. The Governor keeps telling the students to chant Jai Shri Ram. It is promoting inequality,” he told news agency ANI.
“It’s promoting some religious ideology, which the Governor should not have done. He has become a propaganda master of the RSS and the BJP,” he alleged.
The controversy over RN Ravi’s remarks came days after the Supreme Court pulled up the Tamil Nadu Governor, declaring his decision to withhold 10 bills passed by the state Assembly as “illegal” in a landmark ruling.
The top court declared that governors cannot indefinitely delay action on bills, calling such inaction unconstitutional. The ruling marked a significant victory for the DMK government, which has been at loggerheads with Governor Ravi.
(with inputs from ANI)
