Hotelier’s Apology to FM Stokes a Controversy

Chennai: A video clip showing the owner of Annapoorana Hotels, a Coimbatore-based restaurant chain, Srinivasan, bowing before Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and apologizing for his humour-laced rant against GST and taxes the previous day at a meeting has snowballed into a raging controversy that was sought to be doused by BJP State president K Annamalai through an open apology on Friday.

When Sitharaman had called a meeting of industrialists and business persons at Coimbatore to listen to their grievances, the owner of the popular restaurant chain, Srinivasan, elucidated on the problems they faced in collecting GST from customers as different food items came under different tax slabs, causing confusion even to the billing machines.

Though the gathering of business persons, local BJP MLA Vanathi Srinivasan and Sitharaman were all seen laughing their hearts out at the witty presentation of a grievance in the video of the event that went viral on social media, the visual of the same Srinivasan bending down to say sorry to the Union Minister the very next day raised the ire of common people and also a wide range of politicians, prompting Annamalai to intervene.

Despite being far away in England on a sabbatical, Annamalai put out a message on his X page conveying his sincere apologies for the actions of BJP functionaries in sharing a ‘private conversation between a respected business owner and our Hon. FM’ and requested ‘everyone to lay the matter to rest with due respect.’

Annamalai, who had contested the recent Lok Sabha polls from Coimbatore and is trying to develop the region as a BJP bastion, regretted the ‘unintended breach of privacy’ and hailed ‘Annapoorna Srinivasan Anna’ as a pillar of Tamil Nadu’s business community, contributing significantly to the State’s and nation’s economic growth

But by then, politicians of all hues and the common people were up in arms based on the perception that Srinivasan was forced to apologise for raising the GST issue in public. They all saw the apology as a humiliation heaped on him and accused Sitharaman and Vanathi Srinivasan of being arrogant.

‘When the owner of a small business like Annapoorna in Coimbatore asks our public servants for a simplified GST regime, his request is met with arrogance and outright disrespect. Yet when a billionaire friend seeks to bend the rules, change the laws or acquire national assets, Modi Ji rolls out the red carpet,’ said the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, in his X page.

TNCC State president K Selvaperunthogai has called for a protest, led by his party’s district president, V M C Manoharan, near the R S Puram Gandhi Park roundtana in Coimbatore on Saturday to express the public anger against what he called as the fascistic attitude of the finance minister.

With several other politicians like AIADMK’s organization secretary D Jayakumar, CPM’s State general secretary K Balakrishnan, CPI State secretary Mutharasan, DMK leaders Kanimozhi Karunanidhi and T K S Elangovan flaying Sitharaaman for the alleged humiliation of the restaurant chain owner, Vanathi Srinivasan sought to clarify the position.

Vanathi Srinivasan, who was with the Finance Minister on both occasions when the restaurant owner pointed out the drawbacks of the GST in the open and had to bow before her in private, called for a media conference and clarified that it was the restaurant owner who approached her with a request to meet the Minister to apologise for his faux pas.