Date: Tuesday, January 10, 2023
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) unequivocally disapproves of the unseemly actions of the Tamilnadu governor, RN Ravi, in skipping portions of the address to the assembly prepared by the state government.
In doing what he did, governor Ravi has brazenly violated the Constitutional principle that the governor should act as the voice of the elected state government and the long-established convention that he reads out the complete text of the address prepared by the state government. It is now clear that portions of the text of the address which he preferred to skip was approved by him beforehand.
The portions he preferred to skip also reveals his antipathy for the government’s record in the sphere of law and order which is an exclusive prerogative of the elected state governments. Furthermore, he also skipped references to contributions by doyens of the social reform traditions of Tamilnadu.
Governor Ravi’s actions also underline a growing pattern under the current BJP led government where governor’s office is used as an instrument to undermine the Constitutional role of the state governments and smacks of an anti-federal tendency and penchant for centralization of powers.