TN MPs on day-night sit in protest at SBI against Pongal Day exam

CHENNAI: Four Lok Sabha MPs led by CPM Madurai MP Su Venkatesan resorted to a day-night sit-in protest inside the SBI Chennai head office at Nungambakkam against holding of the junior associate recruitment main exam on January 15, Pongal festival day in Tamil Nadu.

VCK chief and MP Thol Thirumavalavan, DMK Chennai South MP Thamizhachi Thangapandian and Congress Krishnagiri MP Dr A Chellakumar joined Venkatesan who sat inside the SBI's head office seeking to postpone the junior associate recruitment.

Writer Venkatesan who had written to the SBI on January 6 to postpone the exam led a protest by CPM and DYFI members in front of the bank office at Nungambakkam.

He along with CPM district secretaries L Sundararajan and G Selva resorted to a sit-in protest inside the chief general manager's office. "The bank officials are still citing technical and administrative reasons for changing the exam dates. We will not move out until the exam dates are changed considering the Pongal festival in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry," Venkatesan told DT Next over the phone on Friday night.

He said that as soon as he came to know about the exam he wrote to the SBI and also made over 20 phone calls seeking to change the exam dates. "How Kerala and Bengal will not allow holding of the exams on Onam and Durga Puja festival! Likewise, we will never allow an exam to be held at a Tamil festival," he said.

VCK chief Thirumavalavan sought the intervention of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to postpone the exams as 13,000 aspirants from Tamil Nadu would appear for the recruitment exam. DMK MP Thamizhachi also appealed to the SBI to shift exam dates respecting the sentiments of the Tamil people. When Congress MP Chellakumar went to join his LS counterparts, police refused entry to him, but later allowed him after the CPM cadres who were camping outside the office resorted to protest.