CM Stalin to not attend Governor Ravi’s Independence Day tea get together: TN govt

The most recent flashpoint revolves across the Kalaignar College Invoice — meant to arrange a brand new state college in Kumbakonam — which the Meeting handed and despatched to him for approval. As an alternative of granting assent, the governor forwarded it to the President of India, a transfer the federal government says was purely to “trigger delay”.

Issues escalated when a BJP functionary challenged a number of state college legislations within the Madras Excessive Courtroom, resulting in a keep order. Reasonably than take a impartial stance, the state alleges, Ravi filed a plea supporting the BJP petitioner’s place — a gesture that, within the DMK’s telling, confirmed his “political partisanship”.

The federal government warns that these disputes have tangible penalties: a number of universities are with out vice-chancellors, a management vacuum that might have an effect on 1000’s of scholars. The DMK frames this as not merely a procedural quibble, however a direct threat to the state’s larger schooling system.

The governor’s workplace has previously defended such interventions as being according to constitutional duties, although critics — and never simply in Tamil Nadu — argue that a number of governors throughout India have been overstepping their ceremonial mandates, significantly in Opposition-ruled states. Lately, Kerala, Punjab, and West Bengal have all seen equally frosty CM–governor relations, full with boycotts of ceremonial capabilities.

For now, Raj Bhavan should make do with out DMK firm on 15 August. Allies of the ruling get together, together with the Congress and the Left, have additionally introduced their absence from the reception. Independence Day in Tamil Nadu, it appears, will as soon as once more be celebrated in two parallel universes: one with well mannered tea and biscuits on the governor’s residence, and one other the place the state’s elected management prefers to sip its dissent.