Drenched in rain, activists of the Left parties staged a demonstration in front of the Andhra Bank branch at the Nellore bus stand here on Tuesday in protest against the Centre's decision to merge public sector banks.
Leading the protest, Communist Party of India(CPI) State secretary K. Ramakrishna said the Centre's decision to merge Andhra Bank with the Union Bank of India along with Corporation Bank hurt the ‘self-esteem’ of the people of Andhra Pradesh, just like the merger of the Hyderabad-headquartered State Bank of Hyderabad with State Bank of India went against the interest of Telangana people.
Big corporates in Mumbai and other places would knock away with the advances from the merged entities which collected deposits from the twin Telugu-speaking states, he feared.
The decision, which would see closure of the bank branches especially in rural areas in a big way and downsizing of the establishment, was undertaken in a haphazard manner without understanding the history of Andhra Bank, founded during freedom struggle by Pattabhi Sitaramayya, he lamented.
The Narendra Modi Government, which had failed to implement even a single promise made to the State at the time of bifurcation, was playing with the sentiments of the people, said CPI(M) East Prakasam district secretary P.Anjaneyulu and demanded that the merger decision be taken back.
‘Andhra identity’
CPI(M) district secretary K. Prabhakar said that the bank was doing well and was the pride of people from both the Telugu States as it began the journey from Machilipatnam and spread to 2,904 branches all over the country and abroad. The bank, with 21,740 employees, was the Andhra identity, he said.
He objected to the decision of the Centre to continue Maharashtra Bank, which had much lesser business compared to Andhra Bank. The communist leaders demanded immediate action against the corporate entities, which had defaulted in lakhs of crores of rupees of public sector banks, and when the former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan gave notices to 17 corporate defaulters, the Centre shunted him out of the RBI, they alleged.
