The death of Cafe Coffee Day founder V.G. Siddhartha in Mangaluru triggered attacks by several political personalities in the Opposition who questioned the role of investigating agencies.
“A letter, supposedly written by Siddhartha a few days before his death, discusses tax terrorism, which is an ugly face of politically-motivated institutions. What signals are we sending to budding entrepreneurs? Our party and I shall always stand with Shri. S.M. Krishna in his fight for justice,” former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Twitter. In another tweet, he said the criticism was favouring “a few crony capitalists”.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted: “From what he has expressed, it appears that he was greatly depressed due to harassment and pressure from agencies, for which he could not run his business in a peaceful manner. This he could not resist.”
Karti Chidambaram, the son of former Union Minister P. Chidambaram and who is facing charges from the Enforcement Directorate, tweeted on Wednesday: “Forget about dealing with markets/suppliers/customers/investors/employees/stakeholders. Managing the systematic harassment by the State n it’s pliant agencies is the biggest challenge. IT, ED, CBI, ROC etc. are the biggest impediments for ease of business.”