S Selvaraj, the Joint Director of Public Relations in Raj Bhavan, Chennai, the official residence of the Governor of Tamil Nadu, was on Thursday, January 12, relieved with immediate effect. The move to relieve Selvaraj comes a couple of days after a controversy erupted over the Raj Bhavan’s Pongal invite to members of parliament and others, in which Governor RN Ravi addressed the state as ‘Tamizhagam’ instead of Tamil Nadu. The invitation in Tamil read, "Tamizhagam Aalunar (Governor of Tamizhagam) RN Ravi and Lakshmi Ravi cordially invite you to participate in the Pongal festival that is scheduled on Thursday, January 12 at the Governor's Residence (Raj Bhavan), Chennai."
The invite came under severe criticism from the likes of CPI(M) MP from Madurai Su Venkatesan, who pointed out that this year’s invite used only the emblem of the Union government, while omitting the state symbol. In his tweet on January 10, Su Venkatesan said, “He (Governor Ravi) has refused to use the state symbol because the name Tamil Nadu is part of it. Likewise, shall we expect that the Governor will vacate his rented accommodation (Raj Bhavan) and leave Tamil Nadu?”
The controversy surrounding the Pongal invite is just another episode in a series of incidents which has had the Tamil Nadu government and the Governor lock horns. A day before the invitation was released, RN Ravi had kicked up yet another storm after he skipped some portions of his inaugural address in the state assembly. Last week, on January 4, Ravi suggested that ‘Tamilagam’ would be a more appropriate name for Tamil Nadu. ‘Nadu’ in Tamil means country, and the Governor seems to suggest that he sees the name ‘Tamil Nadu’ as more indicative of an autonomous region than one that is part of India.