Annapurna restaurant appeals to close the case after dispute with Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has appealed to end the matter of alleged insult of a restaurant owner at a program organized on GST in Coimbatore. This appeal has been made by the concerned restaurant. After the video of the incident went viral, leaders of various parties including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK President MK Stalin, opposition AIADMK and allies of the ruling DMK have condemned the incident. After the controversy arose over the incident, Annapurna Restaurant issued a statement on Saturday evening to clarify the situation. It said that the company’s Managing Director D Srinivasan had raised the issue of different GST rates for different products in restaurants and bakeries on Thursday.

The statement said that after the video of the conversation with Sitharaman went viral the next day, Srinivasan voluntarily met the Finance Minister in private. So that there is no misunderstanding or misinterpretation of facts. The statement said that the video of this private conversation was inadvertently shared on social media, which has caused a lot of misunderstanding and confusion. BJP state president K Annamalai has apologized on behalf of BJP officials for accidentally sharing the video and has said that action will be taken against the person who made the video. With this, we want to put an end to unnecessary assumptions and political understanding.

Srinivasan, during his interaction with the Finance Minister, jokingly mentioned the different rates of GST imposed on food items. While talking about cream buns, he told the Finance Minister that ‘Madam, there is no GST on buns but GST is applicable on cream.’ He told the minister, ‘Now customers say, you bring bun and cream separately and we will make cream buns.’ This led to laughter from the audience. Mr Srinivasan requested the minister to impose a uniform GST on all food items.