Protests across Tamil Nadu against governor R N Ravi; effigies set on fire

CHENNAI: A day after the government-governor face off reached a flash point, opposition to Tamil Nadu governor R N Ravi spilled on to the streets on Tuesday.
DMK cadres, allies, members of Tamil outfits and college students held protests at several places across the state. Effigies of the governor were set on fire in a few places.
The Raj Bhavan-Fort St George hostility sparked a poster war, with walls being plastered with posters for and against Ravi, even as the BJP jumped to his defence.
Chief minister M K Stalin, meanwhile, instructed DMK members to refrain from attacking Ravi. At a meeting of party MLAs in Chennai, Stalin asked them not to expend their energy on "negative politics". "Remove posters attacking the governor and focus on taking the DMK's development policies to the people," Stalin told the MLAs.
The tone for the day was set in Coimbatore, one of the places where the BJP has a strong presence, where members of Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam gathered near the statue of social reformer E V R Periyar at Gandhipuram and raised slogans against Ravi.
They set ablaze photos and an effigy of the governor.
Even as police detained the protesting TPDK members, another group from the same outfit set fire to Ravi's effigy. They, too, were detained.
"We strongly condemn the governor for omitting the names of Ambedkar, Periyar (DK founder E V Ramasamy) and Anna (DMK founder and late chief minister C N Annadurai) in his speech in the state assembly. He has disrespected the assembly and national anthem by walking out before the anthem was played," said TPDK organising secretary V Aruchamy.
As political outfits agitated against the governor, students of various colleges from Chennai, Salem, Dharmapuri, Thiruvallur and Tiruvannamalai held slogan-shouting protests in front of their institutions. They claimed Ravi was acting like a BJP leader and demanded that the Centre recall him. Advocates, too, joined the protests.
Agitations against the TN governor were held in the neighbouring Union Territory of Puducherry too. Placard-wielding members of Tamil outfits, who assembled near a Kamaraj statue, raised slogans against Ravi. There was a minor scuffle when police attempted to prevent the burning of an effigy of Ravi. Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi cadres held a protest in front of the railway station in Tiruvarur, while a Nadar association condemned Ravi for omitting the name of former CM K Kamaraj in his assembly speech.
BJP jumped to the defence of the governor, plastering posters on street walls to counter those put up by DMK. The posters found on the walls of Pudukottai town hailed Ravi. In Coimbatore, BJP cadres who heard that TPDK members were protesting in Coimbatore started gathering at the party office at Sidhapurthur and attempted to proceed to Gandhipuram, in Coimbatore, to hold a counter-protest. But police intervened and rounded them up.
Meanwhile, the governor landed at Trichy airport in the evening and headed to Thanjavur to attend the final day's event of Thyagaraja Aradhana at Thiruvaiyaru on Wednesday morning.