Interview: They take our money, tell us how to live; PTR on why he called Delhi a ‘coloniser’

“They don’t like independent decision-making. They start legislating into the subjects that are listed in the Constitution as State subjects,” PTR told South First.

Drawing attention to the fact that the Indian Constitution allowed excessive concentration of power with the Union government, the Tamil Nadu finance minister said that on top of this aggressive centralisation of power, there is also a kind of “exponential authoritarian grab” by the Centre in terms of “legislation, to money, to borrowing limits” etc.

‘Delhi controls everything’

Explaining what he meant by the “colonial approach” of the BJP-led Union government, PTR said: “The approach is that somehow Delhi (Centre) knows everything; Delhi sees everything; Delhi controls everything; Delhi is the source of all that is great and good, and all the states are basically kind of implementation agencies at best. But of course, the money goes from the states.”

In other words, “They (Union government) take our money and they tell us how to live,” said PTR.

The first time he called the Union government a “colonial power” was when he released a series of videos countering the claims made by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha about the DMK allegedly failing to fulfil its election promises, especially on fuel tax cuts.

“Of all the people, the only ones who don’t have any constraint whatsoever on what they spend is the Union government,” PTR said, adding that the FRPM Act was amended to favour the Centre.

“For the state governments, no matter whether we amend our equivalent acts or not, at the end of the day the Union government still controls how we spend money and how much we borrow, because there is this section in the Constitution, 293(3), based on which they say you can’t borrow without approval from us, as long as you owe them money.”

He contended that the Union government “already controls the states aggressively, beyond what the founding fathers envisioned, especially this Union government”.

‘They try to tie your hands’

“So for them to now come and put additional constraints… it’s like people who don’t know how to do a job, or are worried that other people are doing a good job, and they want them also to look as bad. So they try to tie your hands.”

In the interview to South First, PTR also expressed strong views on the ongoing debate around “freebies”.

“Just because the Supreme Court and the Union government have taken up the debates on “freebies”, inanity is still inanity,” he said.

Watch the full interview here: