New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has dismissed Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s allegation that Tirupur’s textile sector is losing jobs because the Modi government is favouring one Gujarat-based company in oil trade, insisting that the Union government does not “favour anybody” and has acted fairly in taxing windfall profits.
In an exclusive interview to Times Now after the announcement of GST rate cuts, Sitharaman was asked by Group Editor-in-Chief Navika Kumar about Stalin’s charge that India’s textile hub of Tirupur is suffering due to US tariffs while one corporate group benefits from access to discounted Russian crude.
Calling the logic “strange,” Sitharaman retorted, “And if Tirupur has to be protected, and if Tirupur doesn’t require Russian oil, if that’s what he means, saying it is going to one particular company in Gujarat and one person, he can always source where he wants to. There are international affairs where the Union government takes a call. It doesn’t favour anybody.”
The Chief Minister’s comments come at a time when Indian textile exports, particularly from Tirupur, which accounts for a significant share of India’s knitwear exports, face stiff US tariffs, an issue exacerbated during Donald Trump’s presidency when trade disputes led to additional levies on Indian goods.
Rejecting Stalin’s insinuation of cronyism, Sitharaman pointed to the Centre’s imposition of windfall taxes.
“Under Prime Minister Modi, you’re telling me that a particular company, a particular big business is being supported. It is we who came up with windfall tax during COVID and afterwards, where refineries or exporters of these products were making big money selling abroad. We’ve taken windfall tax as a result of which during COVID and till after that, windfall came to almost a nil per a formula, no ham-handed way of doing it. We were the ones who put, did the Chief Minister forget to mention that?”
She argued that Tamil Nadu itself benefitted from the windfall gains: “And that windfall gain went also to Tamil Nadu in one form or the other. You should have stopped it, saying I don’t want from this big business. My Tirupur people are all giving me little amounts in tax. That’s more than enough. You don’t give me anything that is collected from the windfall because you collected from the big business.”
The Finance Minister also rejected attempts to frame the issue as one of North versus South, taking a swipe at decades of Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu.
“And above all, for a Chief Minister to tie unconnected things, one with the other, just makes me feel sad. If Tirupur has to be helped, tell us. You help and we’ll also help. Tirupur is part of India. Tirupur is not going to be left out because it’s somewhere in Pakistan. It’s all right, the sensationalizing and talking with the spirit of, you know, separate, we are separate to rest of the country. That has been a bane of Tamil Nadu for over nearly 50, 60 years,” she said.
Sitharaman pointed out that the Centre has extended support measures to the textile industry, including duty-free cotton imports.
“The textile industry represented to us, within a matter of three days, we extended the cotton duty free import, that’s also going to benefit Tirupur, would he also care to say that?”
The Union minister highlighted ongoing central government investments in Tamil Nadu, citing major projects in Tuticorin, including a hydrogen mission launched recently. She said Tamil Nadu has benefitted both from capital expenditure grants and special allowances provided by the Union government.
The exclusive interview comes days after the GST Council announced a major rate rationalisation, cutting the four-tier system into two main slabs of 5% and 18%, and lowering effective tax rates on essentials — a move Sitharaman said will help reduce inflation and boost consumption.
