DMK Will Seek Amendment To Constitution To Drop Governor’s Address, Says CM Stalin

Chennai : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK President MK Stalin on Tuesday said his party will strive to amend the Constitution to enact provisions making it mandatory for the Governor to address the state legislature at the beginning of the year. His comments came in response to TN Governor RN Ravi’s earlier refusal to read the text prepared by the state government in the Assembly and Lok Bhavan claiming there were “inaccuracies” in the text. The Governor left the Parliament without giving his usual address.

In the State Assembly, Stalin said that it was not a good thing that the Governor refused to read the speech prepared by the government every year. Troublesome governors occur in many states and not just in Tamil Nadu, he said, in a clear reference to non-BJP-ruled states. This was Ravi’s fourth consecutive strike since taking office in 2021.

It is a practice followed for the Governor to read the government’s policy statement at the beginning of the year. Stalin said that if a governor repeatedly violates such a practice, the question naturally arises “why such a rule/practice should exist.”

Therefore, the chief minister said that the DMK, with the support of like-minded parties, will strive in the Assembly to remove the provisions making it mandatory for the governor to speak at the beginning of the year from the Constitution, through amendment.

The DMK chief later posted on social media and said: “Let’s demand a Constitutional amendment where the Governor’s Speech is unnecessary.” He added that this was for the good of all states ruled by opposition parties in the country.

He said the achievements of the four years of the Dravidian model government cannot be hidden from the people who benefited from them just because the Governor left the Assembly without reading the speech prepared by the government.

On Monday, an editorial in an English daily referred to the Tamil Nadu Governor as “stubborn” for his “disrespect for the Constitution and the democratically elected government” and the chief minister claimed Ravi’s actions today prove it.