A fresh controversy is taking the centre stage in Tamil Nadu as the Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi returned the file pert🅷aining to the reallocation of portfolios following the arrest of Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji by the Enforcement Directorate.
ED arrested Senthil Balaji
The ED on Tuesday had launched searches at locations linked to Balaji at Chennai, Karur and Erode as part of probe into money laundering and arrested him on Wednes🍸day.
Amid the row over the alleged money laundering case, Balaji was admitted to the Intensive Care♏ Unit (ICU) of a government hospital early on Wednesday where he underwent coronary angiogram and was advised bypass surgery at the "earliest".
Governor declines CM Stalin's recommention
According to state Higher Education minister K Ponmudi, Ravi had declined Chief Minister M K Stalin's recommendation to reallocate the portfolios of electricity and pro🧸hibition, held by Balaji, to Ministers Thangam Thennarasu and S Muthusamy.
“The Chief Minister has the right to decide on the portf🧜olio allocations or in inductin♓g a minister or dropping a minister from the council of ministers, as per constitution and not the Governor,” Ponmudi said in a statement.
On May 31, the G🌳overnor had sent a letter to the CM asking to drop Senthil Balaji and the very next day, Stalin had given a detailed reply.
“The Governor, who ought to know the constitution, should have accepted the CM’s recommendation on the portfolio reallocation. But th𒁃e Governor is acting like the agent of the🌟 BJP government at the Centre,” Ponmudi said.
“Merely because a minister faces a case, he can’t be removed. Was home minister Amit Shah who faced a case when he was a state mini𒁃ster, sacked?” Ponmudi asked and added in the past many AIADMK ministers who faced cases were not sacked.
