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Sri Annapoorna Hotel on Saturday appealed to the people to put to rest unnecessary assumptions and political misunderstanding after a video of its owner apologising to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman over his remarks on Goods and Services Tax (GST) went viral on September 13.
The hotel stated that it 'would like to end this episode and move on'.
A statement from the leading hotel chain in Coimbatore said during an interaction of representatives from MSMEs and Chamber of Commerce in Coimbatore with the finance minister on September 11, its managing director, D Srinivasan, had raised the issue of different GST rates for different products in restaurants and bakeries.
Srinivasan is also the honourary president of Tamilnadu Hotel Association and vice-president of South Indian Hotels and Restaurants Association.
'Since the news clippings and videos of the interaction went viral, the following day he met the finance minister privately under his own volition to ensure there was no misunderstanding or misrepresentation of facts. The video of this private meeting was inadvertently shared on social media which has caused a lot of misunderstanding and confusion,' the statement said.
The Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party had apologised for mistakenly sharing the video and consequently action has been taken against the maker of the video, it said.
'We would like to thank our Honourable Minister of Finance and MLA Ms Vanathi Srinivasan for organising the GST meeting for the trade bodies and organisations to present their views. With this we would like to put to rest unnecessary assumptions and political misunderstanding. We hope everybody understands that we would like to end this episode and move on,' it said.
The hotel thanked its loyal customers and general public who have been a great source of support and inspiration.