With the Raj Bhavans increasingly becoming politicised, the DMK MPs would highlight in the upcoming budget session of Parliament the need for a ‘Code of Conduct’ for Governors and a time frame for granting assent for Bills passed by the State Legislatures, till the gubernatorial office is abolished.

Like other non-BJP ruled states, the DMK is charging Governor RN Ravi with functioning like Leader of the Opposition, forgetting that it is an unelected post. A resolution to this effect was passed at the meeting of the party’s MPs, chaired by Chief Minister and DMK president MK Stalin, at the party headquarter, Anna Arivalayam in Chennai on Wednesday. “It is necessary and essential to protect the dignity of the office of the Governor,” it read even as it reiterated the party’s long standing position that the office has to be abolished and condemning Ravi.

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“Governor is part of the state legislature, but he will neither respect the tradition of the House nor grant assent to the Bills passed by the Assembly. Though he is the Constitutional Head of the State, he will not read the Governor’s Address, prepared by the state government and would insult ‘Tamil Thai Vaazhthu’ (Invocation to Mother Tamil, the state anthem). Instead, he would eulogise Sanskrit and Hindi,” the resolution said, adding that the entire expense of the Raj Bhavan is borne by the state government, which is the taxpayer’s money. “Carrying out an adamant and confrontationist attitude with the state government, Governor Ravi is only engaged in being troublesome, interfering in governance, which is his sole agenda. Functioning like an opposition leader from the Raj Bhavan, he ensures that universities go headless without Vice Chancellors and preaches in those varsities the BJP’s ideology. Having no faith in the Constitution on which he has taken oath, he is interested only in the anti-people right wing ideology,” the resolution read, recalling the observation of Justice BV Nagarathna of the Supreme Court, “Governors in India were playing a role where they ought not to be and were inactive when they should be playing an active role.”

Demanding signature projects in Railways and other areas in the upcoming Union Budget, the meeting reminded the Modi Government that the state had been neglected in the past budgets and the previous one did not even mention Tamil Nadu. In financial devolution, the state is being discriminated against as it receives only Rs 29 for every Rs 100 garnered through direct taxes. On the contrary, it is Rs 354 for Assam, Rs 333 for Uttar Pradesh, Rs 279 for Madhya Pradesh, Rs 922 for Bihar, run by an ally of the BJP, giving majority to the Union Government, another resolution pointed out.

Resolving to vote against the Wakf amendment Bill when it is presented in Parliament, the meeting condemned the manner in which the bill is being rushed through disregarding the Opposition’s amendments in the JPC to favour the BJP in the Delhi Assembly elections. Resolutions were also passed demanding the Union Government to take forward the new archaeological findings establishing that the iron age commenced in the Tamil landscape and for the withdrawal of the new UGC draft regulations among others.