Tamil Nadu Governor Clears Online Gaming Bill Hours After MK Stalin's Assembly Offensive

Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi signed off on a proposed law to ban online gambling and to regulate internet games today, shortly after the MK Stalin government called him out for not clearing the bill nearly six months since it was passed in the state assembly.

The Governor last month returned the bill with queries, which the ruling DMK government saw as a confrontational stance. The government passed the bill for a second time and sent it back to him.

Mr Ravi is yet to clear nearly 20 bills passed by the Tamil Nadu assembly, including bills seeking to remove him as the Chancellor of state universities.

Chief Minister MK Stalin in the resolution against the Governor today requested the centre and President Droupadi Murmu to tell the Tamil Nadu Governor to clear the bills within a timeframe.

The DMK and its allies have dubbed the Governor "an agent of the RSS and BJP", referring to the BJP's ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He has been accused of acting as a "stumbling block to the state's development".

Last week, the Governor's comment during an interaction with civil service aspirants that withholding a bill is a "decent language to mean rejected" was condemned by Mr Stalin and his party.

Today's development is being seen as a morale booster for the ruling DMK and Chief Minister MK Stalin. "The Governor indefinitely withholding bills is against the welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu. His controversial comments belittle the dignity of the house and undermine the legislature's supremacy in parliamentary democracy," Mr Stalin said.

Forty-one people have died by suicide across Tamil Nadu, reportedly after losing huge sums to online gambling and chance-based online games. Although a similar law was enacted by the previous AIADMK government on regulating online gaming, a court had scrapped it. The DMK, after it came to power, framed the bill based on the recommendations by a specially constituted committee under former judge Justice K Chandru.

The DMK government's rocky ties with the Governor reflects similar dynamics in other states where the BJP is not in power. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, too, have had huge showdowns with the Governors of their states, with the chief minister accusing the centre of influencing Governors to sabotage state government policies.