Simmering discontent in Gujarat’s major industrial hub Surat is threatening to boil over. For over a month now, the city famous worldwide for its diamond and textiles business has seen protest marches by traders demanding a rollback of certain provisions of the new Goods and Services Tax (GST).

As Gujarat heads for crucial assembly elections later this year, issues like demonetisation and GST are bound to figure in the campaign for garnering votes of disaffected sections.

Special Correspondent

A massive rally was taken out by textile traders on Saturday afternoon to protest the GST on Man Made Fibre (MMF) and submitted a memorandum to the district collector.

The rally took a three-kilometre circular route around the textile market after the police refused permission to the original seven km rally to the Collectorate keeping in mind the threat to law and order.

Seeing the immense support from the textile traders from all sectors, the police department had granted rally permission with a condition that it should be taken out in the limit of textile trading markets.

A day earlier, Union minister of state for road and transport Mansukh Mandaviya had met traders’ leaders and promised to take up the matter with the GST Council.

Over 10 lakh people associated with big and small power looms and textile mills of Surat are a worried lot, fearing the GST would add to the woes of the industry barely recovering from the effects of demonetisation.

Special Correspondent

The BJP has been in constant touch with the traders,” Mandaviya told reporters in Surat. But some traders are getting impatient. Business is our God. If business is not there, do we worship the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),?” asks Mahendra D Raoliya, a power loom owner and diehard BJP supporter till the GST hit his textiles business.

“Most of our products are sold on two-wheelers in the countryside. A Rs-100 saree will cost Rs 190 after GST. Imported products will be cheaper and our industry will be finished this time,” says Mahendra, a member of the Patidar community that traditionally votes for the BJP.

However on Monday Police lathicharge on textile traders who were staging a protest against GST in Surat.

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