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Zoho’s co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu is set to be the chief guest while Accenture’s managing director and head of operations (Chennai) Rama S Ramachandran is to be the guest of honour at the ‘Resurgent Bharath’ event to be held in Chennai on February 2, reports Neha Alawadhi.
Technology firms Accenture and Zoho found themselves at the centre of a Twitter controversy on Monday. This came after a user pointed out that top executives of these firms were attending a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh event in Chennai.
With popular sentiment not in favour of the government because of the ongoing Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register for Citizens across the country, as well as the recent violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University, several users took to the microblogging platform.
They questioned the companies for supporting the right wing (RSS), regarded as the ideological backbone of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Zoho’s co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu is set to be the chief guest while Accenture’s managing director and head of operations (Chennai) Rama S Ramachandran is to be the guest of honour at the ‘Resurgent Bharath’ event to be held in Chennai on February 2.
Several Twitter users called for a boycott of Accenture and Zoho services. “People if you do business with @zoho @zohosocial @zohocrm, you are funding the RSS. People if you do business with @Accenture , you are funding RSS. You are funding fascists in India,” said one Twitter user. Zoho is a web-based office suite, like Microsoft Office.
Several people also questioned the companies’ policies on allowing their employees to attend such events organised by “religious organisations.”
In response, Vembu tweeted: “I don’t decide my views based on Twitter attacks. If you dislike which events I attend, please do what your conscience dictates and I will do what mine dictates. We earn our daily bread due to our work and we will continue to do quality work. I won’t be responding to attacks.”
An email sent to the company regarding its policy on such matters did not elicit a response until going to press.
Accenture had also not responded to an email request for comment.
The RSS has been reaching out to techies since over a decade. It holds shakhas over the weekends in different cities.
One of the volunteers, it has been reported, set up the IT Milan app. IT Milans do not host the usual shakha activities but let techies talk about subjects that may be unrelated to politics.
Edited by Sai
