Mumbai, Jul 23: On Monday morning, when Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was advising party leaders to adopt a positive attitude, his party workers in Mumbai were forcibly shutting down an AC veg restaurant opposite KEM Hospital on Dr E Borges Road in Parel.
Led by Ganesh Kumar Yadav , Mumbai Youth congress president, and party MLA Kalidas Kolambkar, nearly 30-35 Youth Congress workers landed at Aditi Pure Veg AC restaurant in Parel, and hauled up the owner for printing anti-UPA government remark in his bills.
Shouting slogans, the Youth Congress workers shut down the eatery saying, closing down the restaurant has come from Congress headquarters in Delhi, a claim yet to be verified.
The crime: The restaurant owner Srinivas Shetty had printed the following in his bills : ‘As per UPA government, eating money (2G, Coal, CWG scam) is a necessity and eating food in an AC restaurant is a luxury,'
The Congress workers charged the shopowner of printing defamatory material against the ruling party and asked owner to shut shop.
“Some of the Congress workers had food at Aditi. They saw the hotel owner had printed defamatory material against the UPA and wrote to the Congress party leaders in Delhi, who then diverted the matter to us,” said Pratik A Nakate, president, Wadala assembly of Mumbai Pradesh Youth Congress.
“So our Youth Congress workers approached the restaurant and demanded its closure and asked for an apology. We have informed the Bhoiwada police about it,” said Omshree Kadam, secretary of south-central district Congress committee.
Mumbai police slapped the proprietor, Srinivas Shetty, with an non-cognisable complaint(NC).
The Centre had introduced service tax on eating at AC restaurants several years back, and the shopowner was using this as an excuse to denigrate the Congress, party workers said.
A police officer from Bhoiwada police station said, “We have settled the matter for now. The restaurant owner has promised that he will not circulate those bills now.”
