Opposition leaders Siddaramaiah and H.D. Kumaraswamy hit out at the BJP for “imposing Hindi” on Kannadigas by refusing to hold bank exams in Kannada.
The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) has notified its exams for 2019 for clerical posts in nationalised banks to be held in English and Hindi. Mr. Siddaramaiah tweeted that “Central government has again cheated the people of Karnataka” by not holding the exam in Kannada.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had on July 4 announced in Parliament that recruitment exams for Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) will be held in 13 regional languages, including Kannada. The RRB recruitments were earlier done at the State level in the local language and English. Then the NDA government centralised it across the country in 2014 by holding it only in Hindi and English. However, recruitment for nationalised banks that the IBPS has now called for has never been held in other languages.
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Arun Javagal, a Kannada activist of Banavasi Balaga, said while Hindi speakers have the option to write the exam in their mother tongue, others must also have the same option. Mr. Kumaraswamy said that this was adding insult to injury and proof of the stepmotherly treatment of the Union government.