The Goods and Services Tax (GST) department on Thursday raided the Vaidyanath Sugar Factory in Parli in Maharashtra’s Beed district belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pankaja Munde, who is also a national general secretary of the ruling party.
According to sources, the GST department’s action against Ms. Munde’s sugar factory has been taken in connection with the alleged evasion of ₹12 crore in GST. Sources also say that the factory is likely to be sealed.
At a time when leaders of non-BJP opposition parties are feeling the heat of central agencies, the GST’s action against a ruling party leader has raised eyebrows.
Downplaying the GST raid as a “procedural issue”, Ms. Munde nonetheless called the action “unfortunate” and said that the factory was currently under lock and key owing to financial distress for a 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,” said Ms. Munde.
Ms. Munde informed that the factory had been locked for the several months now and that it was in dire financial straits owing to persistently low production since 2011, compounded by severe drought for three consecutive years between 2013 and 2015.
Stating that the reason for the raid was “unclear,” Ms. Munde expressed disappointment that the raid occurred despite her cooperating with the GST department and explaining the financial problems suffered by her factory. The authorities have seized some documents after raiding the factory.
Ms. Munde’s relations with the top BJP brass since the passing of her father – the stalwart Gopinath Munde – have been frigid. Her relations with current Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis have been especially fraught, with the two rarely sharing a dais during any programme.
In the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election, Ms. Munde had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of her estranged cousin, the Nationalist Congress Party’s Dhananjay Munde from the Munde’s bastion in Parli (in Beed).
It was said that the prime reason for Ms. Munde’s disgruntlement with the party was due to the current Deputy Chief Minister (and then Chief Minister) Fadnavis’ “authoritarian style” of running the BJP.
Not just Ms. Munde, but also other OBC leaders within the BJP like Eknath Khadse (now in the NCP) had blamed Mr. Fadnavis for “engineering” their defeats and denying them tickets.
