Preference to North Indians in govt recruitment, alleges Vaiko

Vaiko, in a statement said, “Out of 1,765 men recruited for various posts such as welder, fitter, electrician and mechanic in Southern Railways, more than 1,600 persons were North Indians. This was not any accident but was done purposely by Modi.”

He also said that in the last 52 months of BJP rule, more than 90 per cent of recruited labourers in central government offices such NLC, BHEL, public sector banks, Income Tax, Customs department and so on were North Indians. Vaiko blamed Modi and his government for manipulating the recruitment in favour of North Indians.

“In 2014, Southern Railways announced to recruit labourers for Group-D posts and in the Tamil announcement it was informed that there was no need for getting signatures from Gazetted officials, but in the English announcement it was mentioned that signatures from Gazetted officials was compulsory. Due to the confusion applications of more than 2.5 lakh candidates from Tamil Nadu were rejected by the Southern Railways which enabled large number of North Indians to get jobs in Tamil Nadu,” said Vaiko.

As many as 404 party workers of the MDMK, including 22 women, courted arrest at Kavalkinaru, the bordering area between Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari, on Friday while they were showing black flags in protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived at Agastheeswaram in the district to dedicate development projects. Vaiko, MDMK general secretary, who led the party cadre from the front during the protest, was on his way towards Aralvaimozhi, a panchayat town in Nagercoil to express his dissent against the Prime Minister. 

However, the police personnel, who were deployed adequately to prevent any untoward incident, stopped the rallying MDMK cadres at Kavalkinaru itself and urged them to give up their protest. Meanwhile, scenes of unrest prevailed for some time as some unidentified cadre of the BJP hurled stones at the MDMK congregation. Irked, the MDMK cadre threw stones in retaliation targeting the BJP cadres. Unfortunately, four persons suffered injuries in the stone pelting incident, sources said.