COIMBATORE: The controversy over the video of a hotelier apologising to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has taken its first toll on the BJP, as the district unit, on Saturday, expelled a party functionary for his alleged comments linking a top district functionary with the incident.
Party insiders said the expelled functionary, Singanallur mandal president R Sathish, had posted on Facebook that the controversial video of D Srinivasan, managing director of Sree Annapoorna Sree Gowri Shankar Hotels Pvt Ltd, meeting with the finance minister was recorded and released by a top district functionary. The post was deleted later, they said.
Following the expulsion by BJP district president J Rameshkumar, an official statement issued here said, “Sathish was expelled from being a basic member of the party based on the decision made by the organisational general secretary of the state BJP Kesava Vinayagam, state general secretary AP Muruganandham and state treasurer SR Sekar for his alleged activities tarnishing the unity and reputation of the party and engaging in anti-party activities.”
Talking to TNIE, Rameshkumar said Sathish had shared his thoughts against the party functionaries linking the recent controversies and the district unit is inquiring about the person who recorded the video of the incident.
Sources said the union minister’s meeting with the MSME sector was organised by the Coimbatore South BJP MLA Vanathi Srinivasan after a month-long effort, hoping that it would yield positive results. “However, the comment made by the hotelier in the meeting and the following development turned the table and ruined the entire efforts,” they added.
“During an interaction on Wednesday, Srinivasan raised the issue of different GST rates for different products in restaurants and bakeries. The following day, since the video had gone viral, he met the union finance minister privately of his own volition to ensure there was no misunderstanding or misrepresentation of facts. The video of this private interaction was inadvertently shared on social media which caused a lot of misunderstanding and confusion. On platform X, @BJP4Tamil Nadu apologised for mistakenly sharing the video and action has been taken against maker of the video. With this we would like to put to rest the unnecessary assumptions and political misunderstanding,” said the statement.