BJP nationwide common secretary Pankaja Munde. File
| Photo Credit: SANDEEP SAXENA
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) division on Thursday raided the Vaidyanath Sugar Factory in Parli in Maharashtra’s Beed district belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pankaja Munde, who can be a nationwide common secretary of the ruling occasion.
According to sources, the GST division’s action towards Ms. Munde’s sugar factory has been taken in reference to the alleged evasion of ₹12 crore in GST. Sources additionally say that the factory is more likely to be sealed.
At a time when leaders of non-BJP opposition events are feeling the warmth of central companies, the GST’s action towards a ruling occasion leader has raised eyebrows.
Downplaying the GST raid as a “procedural issue”, Ms. Munde nonetheless referred to as the action “unfortunate” and mentioned that the factory was at present beneath lock and key owing to monetary misery for a very long time.
“I spoke to the GST authorities as to the reason for their sudden action. But I came to know that there was an order from above to take such an action. The Vaidyanath Cooperative Sugar Factory has been running in loss for the last 6-7 years. We even met Union Minister Amit Shah a few days ago to explain the poor health of sugar factories. The factory has to pay off a loan of nearly ₹250 crore of which we have already paid off around ₹152 crore. We have requested the government to help sick sugar mills like ours,” mentioned Ms. Munde.
Ms. Munde knowledgeable that the factory had been locked for the a number of months now and that it was in dire monetary straits owing to persistently low manufacturing since 2011, compounded by extreme drought for 3 consecutive years between 2013 and 2015.
Stating that the rationale for the raid was “unclear,” Ms. Munde expressed disappointment that the raid occurred regardless of her cooperating with the GST division and explaining the monetary issues suffered by her factory. The authorities have seized some paperwork after raiding the factory.
Ms. Munde’s relations with the highest BJP brass because the passing of her father – the stalwart Gopinath Munde – have been frigid. Her relations with present Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis have been particularly fraught, with the 2 hardly ever sharing a dais throughout any programme.
In the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election, Ms. Munde had suffered a humiliating defeat by the hands of her estranged cousin, the Nationalist Congress Party’s Dhananjay Munde from the Munde’s bastion in Parli (in Beed).
It was mentioned that the prime motive for Ms. Munde’s disgruntlement with the occasion was because of the present Deputy Chief Minister (after which Chief Minister) Fadnavis’ “authoritarian style” of operating the BJP.
Not simply Ms. Munde, but in addition different OBC leaders throughout the BJP like Eknath Khadse (now in the NCP) had blamed Mr. Fadnavis for “engineering” their defeats and denying them tickets.
