A matter of buns puts BJP in a pickle

Cream buns sold at Coimbatore’s Annapoorna outlets in Coimbatore on September 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Eight months ago, there was a controversy in Tamil Nadu over a film called Annapoorani. It shows the protagonist, a Brahmin woman, going against her beliefs in order to become a top chef in India. In one scene, she learns how to prepare a meat dish. Several right-wing groups claimed that the scene “hurt” the religious sentiments of the Hindu community, especially Brahmins.

Over the past week, a new controversy grabbed headlines in the State, this time over Annapoorna, a popular chain of vegetarian restaurants, known as the ‘pride of Coimbatore’. This too was centred around food.

On September 11, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited Coimbatore to attend a couple of events, including a meeting with representatives of industry. During the interaction, D. Srinivasan, the managing director of the Sree Annapoorna Sree Gowri Shankar Hotels in Coimbatore, raised the issue of varying GST rates on food items by providing an illustration. He said that while there is no tax levied on plain bun, adding cream to it incurs a tax of 18%. He added in humour that customers at his hotel ask only for buns, saying they will add the cream themselves.

This was not the only issue that Mr. Srinivasan raised during the meeting. However, only a portion of his speech went viral on social media. In that clip, he is heard claiming that the BJP MLA of Coimbatore (South), Vanathi Srinivasan, who was also present at the event, was a regular customer and spoke about her food preferences.

The manner in which Mr. Srinivasan highlighted the taxation issue, as reflected on social media, put the Finance Minister and the MLA in an embarrassing position. Meanwhile, some supporters of the BJP wondered whether anyone who raised similar issues with Ministers of the ruling DMK would be allowed to go scot-free.

The next day, Ms. Sitharaman told the media in Coimbatore that a Group of Ministers was examining the demands of the hotel industry regarding the GST on various food items and would submit its recommendations. She also responded to the complaint of several States that they were not getting their due of GST collections. She said that the collections were shared equally between the Union and State governments. Apart from this, the Centre gives 41% of the divisible pool of taxes to the States, she said.

The matter could have been laid to rest with this. However, the BJP’s image took a hit when another video clip emerged in which Mr. Srinivasan was seen apologising to Ms. Sitharaman at a private meeting. Ms. Vanathi Srinivasan was also present at this interaction. When this apology too went viral, the Opposition slammed the BJP, especially the Finance Minister, for displaying “arrogance of power” and “intimidating those who ask questions.” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi; DMK deputy general secretary of the Lok Sabha, Kanimozhi Karunanidhi; the organisation secretary of the AIADMK, D. Jayakumar; and the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee chief, K. Selvaperunthagai criticised the BJP. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, who returned to Chennai on Saturday after a three week-long visit to the U.S. to seek industrial investments, said that the way in which Ms. Sitharaman handled the episode was “shameful”.

The BJP legislator asserted that her party had no role in Mr. Srinivasan tendering the apology. She rebutted Mr. Stalin’s criticism saying Ms. Sitharaman had addressed the problems of industry without any assistance from the State govenrment. The BJP legislator added that she could have disputed Mr. Srinivasan’s account about herself publicly, but she refrained from doing so to maintain decorum.

Then, in a surprise move, the BJP State president, K. Annamalai, who is in the U.K. on sabbatical, wrote on X, expressing his “sincere apology” for what his colleagues did, namely, sharing in public a private conversation between Ms. Sitharaman and Mr. Srinivasan. On September 14, the restaurant chain issued a statement that its top executive “under his own volition” met Ms. Sitharaman to clear any misgivings.

The episode drives home the point that the Union government has a long way to go in sensitising people about the system concerning GST and that the Centre, though a key player in the decision-making process is not the sole authority to decide on taxation.