Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi Is Acting As A Pawn In BJP Gameplan For 2024 Polls

By S Sethuraman

The long and bitter exchanges between DMK leaders and Governor R N Ravi in Tamil Nadu over DMK “ideology” and other policy differences have led to Chief Minister M K Stalin taking the matter to President Draupadi Murmu. He dubbed Mr Ravi “biased and unfit” to hold his office. He has left it to the President’s wisdom to decide whether Mr Ravi’s continuance “is desirable or appropriate”.

This is a development unlikely to enthuse BJP or Prime Minister Narendra Modi at this stage of intense campaigning for Battle 2024 by the Prime Minister himself. How to make a big win in DMK-ruled Tamil Nadu in the Battle-2024 with its 39 seats in Lok Sabha, has been one of over-riding concerns for the all-powerful BJP, at national level, more so for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This is crucial as the BJP plans aiming at a two-third majority in Lok Sabha, to effect constitutional revisions needed to make India a “one nation” Hindu State. With such a majority, Mr Modi could lay out his plans for a total transformation of India by 2047, 100th year of the country’s independence.

Tamil Nadu, given to its Dravidian ideology and a model of governance with social justice as key on its growth and development path, has not been amenable to the Modi Government’s policies, especially in the social sphere, like the New Education Policy (NEP) it has enforced in most other States.

T N Governor Mr R N Ravi was specially chosen by PM Modi to bring about a more open stance of TN under Chief Minister M K Stalin, in all possible ways, to align the State’s policies more in accord in a Federal set-up. The political game could have been eventually to bring the more advanced, industrially and economically, Tamil Nadu for BJP to gain some control of the South though it has lost Karnataka at present.

And Mr Ravi first attempted to push the New Education Policy implemented at the University and school levels but there was also controversy raging over compulsory use of Hindi – which had led to large-scale agitations in the past on the ground of the most ancient Tamil language being neglected or sidelined.

And Governor Ravi was trying to open channels directly with educationists and universities and used public forums to advance NEP and run down whatever progress had been made.

Indeed Mr Ravi initially questioned the State’s title as “Nadu” would mean a separate country. He pronounced his preference for a less domineering title, “Tamizhagam”. The deterioration in the relationship between the Stalin Government and Governor Ravi had begun with the way the Governor held up for long in giving assent or returning bills passed by the Tamil Nadu. He had also left out portions on Dravidian model of governance from the text prepared by Government while opening the budget session of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.

He firmly dismissed as “ill informed accusation” that the Governor was crossing the line laid down in the Constitution on Governor’s role.

Matters took a more serious turn when Governor Ravi dismissed one of the Ministers, Mr Senthil Balaji, undergoing ED investigation for money-laundering, but later withheld it on legal advice. This interrogation under ED custody is before the Madras High Court at present.

In all this, the over-riding concern of BJP, chiefly, as much that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been how to reduce to a negligible minimum TN CM Stalin’s current hold on the State’s voters. BJP’s planned conquest of Tamil Nadu has both short-term as well as long-term objectives, i.e. firstly to frustrate a DMK win in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, given the State’s39 seats in Lok Sabha. In 2019, Mr Stalin could secure 25 seats for the DMK alone.

But, DMK has also to face a stronger opposition in the Lok Sabha election, the way BJP is organising itself with some allies like part of AIADMK and other smaller groups. It is here Mr Ravi would have felt his meetings and interviews extolling Hindu dharmas could bring a segment, notably Brahmins and other religious sections to back Mr Modi for Lok Sabha.

In 2021 Assembly election, BJP did secure 4 seats in the State Assembly from zero, and a new bold strategy was conceived at the Centre through a set of measures, firstly, by taking one MLA into the Union Council of Ministers. Mr Modi then did make Puducherry as a launching pad, to make sure of its one seat and then keep an eye on Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

The Prime Minister’s experience with Stalin Government made sure for BJP to devise multiple ways by which Tamil Nadu merges its identity into the Bharat that remains the ruling party’s objective. The 2019 Lok Sabha polls made it possible for Mr Modi’s abrogation of Article 370 in J and K and to split them into two union territories.

BJP’s earlier expectations of its first ‘Sankalp’ (two-thirds majority in 2014 Lok Sabha) may have been softened by the different shifts taking place in the political arena. It was clear to analysts of Tamil Nadu politics the day Mr R N Ravi arrived as Mr Modi’s choice for Tamil Nadu that there should be a game plan toward a consummation devoutly wished for by BJP i.e. making for a soft run of BJP’s national commitments for “one nation, one law and one language (Hindi)” policies. Mr Ravi’s role in Nagaland cannot be overlooked. His next assignment turned out to be Tamil Nadu in the BJP strategy.

He has also played his part in whatever way possible. For instance, Mr Ravi has been sitting on DMK Government demand for sanction to prosecute two former AIADMK Ministers “even on a request made by the CBI”, Mr Stalin said in his letter to President Murmu, and this exhibited his “political bias”. (IPA Service)

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