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PM wants to abolish states, if not reduce them to mere municipalities: Tamil Nadu CM
Stalin also appealed to voters in five poll-bound states to hand over the governance to the INDIA alliance.
Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to at least reduce states into “mere municipalities” if he is not able to “abolish” them completely.
While speaking for the third episode of his podcast ‘Speaking for India’, Stalin also appealed to voters in five poll-bound states to hand over the governance to the INDIA alliance. “Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is of the opinion that the states should be abolished, if not, they should at least be reduced into mere municipalities…Binding the entire administration of the states to the governor’s mansions has become BJP’s action plan,” Stalin said. The chief minister’s remarks came a day after he said that Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi has become a BJP party man and the Raj Bhavan has converted into a BJP party office.
Stalin in his podcast added that the BJP was stonewalling 19 legislations passed by the state assembly by stopping its assent via the Raj Bhavan and urged people to take note of such belittling.
Stalin said despite the Union government preventing states from functioning and ensuring that governors, who get their salaries from state governments, work against its welfare, Opposition-led states have accomplished “so much.” “If we were to form a Union government that respects the federal norms, all the states will flourish better,” he said.
Stalin drew parallels between the Prime Minister’s previous tenure as Gujarat chief minister and his current tenure as Prime Minister. “While chief minister Modi stood in favour of more devolution of powers to states, Prime Minister Modi is moving towards a single party and a single leadership by fragmenting and destroying the world’s second largest democratic system,” Stalin said. “After coming to Delhi as Prime Minister, he did not even like the first line of the Constitution which goes, ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States’.”
Stalin said that while state autonomy is one of the founding principles of his party, the DMK, the BJP-led Union government wants a “dictatorial government” as favoured by its ideological parent, the RSS. “By moving towards a single party, a single leadership, a single prime minister with a singular power, they are fragmenting and destroying the second largest democratic system,” the chief minister said.
Meanwhile, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court against governor Ravi over his delay in clearing various bills approved by the assembly.
