The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and its allies on Tuesday said they have submitted a memorandum seeking the removal of Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi to President Draupadi Murmu, PTI reported.

In the memorandum dated November 2, the ruling Secular Progressive Alliance alleged that Ravi’s acts were “unbecoming of the governor”.

“RN Ravi has violated the oath he took under Article 159 to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution…and to devote himself to the service and well-being of the people of Tamil Nadu,” the alliance said, according to PTI. “Far from it, he has been instigating communal hatred, and is a threat to the peace and tranquillity of the state…”

The DMK-led alliance also accused Ravi of delaying assent to Bills cleared by the Tamil Nadu Assembly and contradicting the policies of the government in public.

“This amounts to interference in the administration of the state and transaction of business by the legislature,” the memorandum said, reported The Hindu. “It impedes and obstructs a democratically elected government from serving the people, which is ex-facie unconstitutional.”

The alliance further alleged that Ravi has been “unabashedly propagating dangerous, divisive, religious rhetoric” in public. They also accused the governor of communalising Tamil literature, according to the newspaper.

“Tamil Nadu is a paradise where people from different religions, languages and castes live peacefully,” the alliance wrote. “...Ravi has developed an unfortunate propensity to publicly profess his lack of faith in the secular ideals of this country and frequently engages in divisive rhetoric.”

Ravi vs Tamil Nadu government

Since Ravi took over as Tamil Nadu governor in September last year, he has been in the middle of multiple controversies and run-ins with the MK Stalin-led government.

In February, he had returned a Bill to the Assembly for reconsideration as it proposed to exempt Tamil Nadu students from taking the National Entrance cum Eligibility Test, or NEET, for admission to undergraduate medical courses.

The Bill had proposed that admission of students to medical courses be carried out based on Class 12 examination results.

The question paper of NEET is based on the Central Board of Secondary Education syllabus, which is different from the Tamil Nadu state board’s academic curriculum. Tamil Nadu has been opposing the examination on the grounds that a common entrance test would harm the prospects of state board students.

In June, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had also accused Ravi of undermining his constitutional authority after he said that sanatan dharma – a term often used by Hindutva supporters – upholds unity in diversity, according to The Times of India.

In August, he again courted controversy saying that there should be zero tolerance towards violence and “anyone who uses a gun should be dealt with a gun”.

Before his stint in Tamil Nadu, Ravi was the governor of Nagaland and acted as the Centre’s interlocutor for the Naga peace talks. Differences had emerged between the Centre and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), with the latter demanding Ravi’s removal as the interlocutor in 2020.

The group, which had signed a peace treaty and started a dialogue with the government on the matter of a sovereign homeland in 1997, had accused Ravi of creating tensions among the parties involved in the negotiations.