After Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pankaja Munde recently organised an independent tour to show her strength, officials of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Commissionerate on Monday seized assets worth Rs 19 crore from the Munde-owned Vaidyanath Co-operative sugar factory in Beed district for not paying taxes on the sale of sugar.
The GST Comnissionerate seized assets such as boilers and other related machinery worth Rs 19 crore. The sugar factory failed to pay the tax during the Covid pandemic. In April, GST officials visited the factory, indicating the beginning of the action. GST action on the Vaidyanath factory came as a surprise and also a political message in Beed as Munde is a senior leader and former minister of the BJP.
The timing of the action has set tongues wagging as Munde took a two-month political break from 7 July, and after two months, toured around 10 districts for “Shiv Shakti Yatra”. However, the tour was not under the BJP banner, but her own political tour.
Since the defeat in the Assembly election 2019, Munde feels side-lined in the state BJP and has been openly expressing her displeasure against the party leadership in the state, especially against deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.