'Governor assumes himself to be king of India'

CHENNAI: Leaders of the ruling alliance together on Sunday condemned Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi for his recent controversial speeches and said that "Governor assuming himself to be the king of India has started speaking (unconstitutionally)."

The statement was jointly issued by leaders of all the parties in the ruling alliance and also by K Veeramani, President of Dravidar Kazhagam.

In the statement, the leaders pointed at the recent speeches of the Governor and said that the speeches are against the pledge that he took as Governor.

"The Governor has spoken that though it is said that India is a secular country no country will be secular and every country will be dependent on a religion. There is no exemption to it. Through the speech, the Governor has assumed himself to the Parliament of India, Supreme Court, the President and as the king of India." said the leaders, in the statement.

They also said that right from the day Ravi took charge as the Governor he has started uttering controversial statements but it is not clear what his intentions are, whether to create confusion in the state by creating unwanted controversies or to grab attention.

"whatever be his intentions, his comments on Sanathanam, Ariyam, Dravidam, scheduled caste people and Tirukural are both baloney and dangerous. There is no criticism about his individual beliefs and we are not concerned about them but being in an constitutionally approved post he should utter fundamentalistic ideas. It is not good for him nor his position." said the leaders, who also asked the Governor not to speak against the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.

Recalling the famous SR Bommai case, the leaders said that the Governor knowing that a government cannot take a side with any religion is uttering controversial statements and condemned the Governor.

"We are giving importance to the speeches just because Ravi is saying them as a Governor. If he aspires for a much higher post in BJP he can resign and say whatever he wishes but being in the Governor post he should stop saying controversial statements at least from now, " said the leaders.