Mangaluru: Opposing the merger of the Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda, MLC Ivan D’Souza staged a day long hunger strike, on January 8 at Mahatma Gandhi park in front of Town Hall.

Prior to the stir, Ivan D’Souza garlanded the portaint of A B Shetty, the founder of Vijaya Bank.

While addressing the protesters, D’Souza questioned the move of the union government and questioned why government is so keen on merging the profit making Vijaya Bank with the loss making Gujarat-based Bank of Baroda.

“Vijaya Bank is the pride of our Dakshina Kannada district as it was started in our district. Merger of banks is not a way out to solve the problems of the loss making banks. Union government should bring out a white paper on the financial status of those banks which are alreadly merged with the other banks”, he stressed.

MLC and District Congress Chief Harish Kumar, Deputy Mayor Muhammad K, former Mayor Shashidhar Hegde,Surendra, All India Bank Officers’ Organisation, Mangaluru unit president Surendra among others were present.