Why RN Ravi's Appointment as West Bengal Governor Could be Bad News for Mamata

The transfer comes laden with potential for ratcheting up the simmering conflict between TMC govt and Raj Bhavan.

The waters are troubled for Mamata. And Governor Ravi could well muddy it some more.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has declared that she is “shocked and deeply concerned” about Governor CV Ananda Bose’s sudden resignation just weeks ahead of the Assembly elections in the state.

She may well have expressed the same sentiments about the Centre’s choice for his replacement. For, the one taking over as the Governor of West Bengal is none other than RN Ravi, who has held the same post in Tamil Nadu for over four years, and has repeatedly hit the headlines for crossing swords with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government of the state.

At a time when Governors of Opposition-ruled states have been demonstrating their increasingly partisan role, and their unabashed commitment to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre rather than to their apolitical constitutional role, Ravi’s name probably leads all the rest.

Pre-Poll Strategy? Lessons from Tamil Nadu

It will not be lost on the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief that Ravi’s appointment as Governor of Bengal in this crucial period leading up to the elections and its aftermath comes laden with the potential for ratcheting up the simmering conflict between her government and the Raj Bhavan (now called Lok Bhavan). Especially when the state and the Election Commission of India (ECI) have been locked in a bitter dispute over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, and Mamata has made no bones about her allegation that the BJP is using constitutional agencies to serve its own ends and try and improve its chances in the coming polls.

Consider Ravi’s track record as Governor of Tamil Nadu. Since he took office in September 2021, the former IPS officer has repeatedly been at loggerheads with the DMK government, sparking huge political rows.

He has refused to clear Bills passed by the state Assembly, keeping them pending or returning them; he has summarily dismissed a minister hours after the latter was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in an alleged money laundering case, even though it is the prerogative of the Chief Minister to sack a minister; on several occasions he has declined to read parts of the Governor’s speech to the Assembly prepared by the government; and he is the only Governor to date who has used his Independence Day and Republic Day speeches to level allegations against the state government.

His actions have been so extreme that they have led to several strictures from the Supreme Court.

In April 2023, Ravi declared that a Governor withholding assent from a Bill meant that “the Bill is dead”. Later that year, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by then Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, held that the rejection of a Bill by a Governor “does not mean its death”. A law proposed by a state legislature is not extinguished merely because the Governor refuses to sign his assent, the ruling said.

The Supreme Court issued a much more unequivocal reprimand in April 2025 when it held that 10 Bills passed by the Tamil Nadu government which Ravi had rejected and subsequently sent to the President were “deemed to have received assent”.

It described the Governor’s action of referring the Bills to the President as “not bona fide”, and his conduct as “arbitrary, non est, and erroneous in law”.

It was a huge victory for the DMK government and an unequivocal rap on the knuckles of the Governor—not to speak of its wider significance in the context of India’s federal structure and Centre-state relations. Anyone else would probably have resigned after such a censure. But Ravi gamely carried on.

All this makes Ravi something of a gubernatorial hot potato for states where Opposition parties are in power. No wonder Mamata was fuming about not having been consulted by the Centre on its choice of the state’s new Governor.

TMC's Tryst with Trying Governors

To be sure, the West Bengal government’s relationship with its previous Governor, CV Ananda Bose, has been far from smooth. Bose clashed with the government on the appointment of vice-chancellors of universities, kept Bills pending, visited violence-hit areas in the aftermath of the panchayat polls in July 2023, holding the state responsible for rampant lawlessness, and making statements such as, “The darkest hour is just before dawn. There will be light at the end of the tunnel.”

Another flashpoint emerged in May 2024 when a female employee at the Raj Bhavan brought a charge of sexual harassment against him.

While Bose dismissed it as a ploy to malign the office of the Governor ahead of the general elections, Mamata went on record saying that the Raj Bhavan was not a “safe place for women”. In turn, Bose filed a defamation suit against her, and has also been known to call her “Lady Macbeth”.

For all his differences with the Chief Minister and the Bengal government, however, Bose never achieved the level of incessant tension and bickering that marked the tenure of his predecessor Jagdeep Dhankhar, who was eventually plucked from the Governor’s seat and rewarded with the plum post of the Vice President of India. Ravi could prove to be cast more in the mould of a Dhankhar than a Bose.

One does not know Ravi’s brief as he comes to assume the position of the Governor of West Bengal. But it would be safe to assume that a man with his instinct for confrontation and his willingness to oppose and criticise the actions of a non-BJP-ruled state government every step of the way, may be an asset for the Centre in the poll-bound state. 

The BJP, the principal Opposition party in Bengal, is going all out to oust the TMC and wrest power in the state. Mamata, the SIR handicap notwithstanding, will fight tooth and nail to keep anti-incumbency and the right-wing party at bay. If the results are close, the TMC will want an impartial Governor just as the BJP will want someone who bats for them. 

The waters are troubled for Mamata. And Governor Ravi could well muddy them some more. 

(Shuma Raha is an independent journalist and author. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint does not endorse or is responsible for them.)