Employees of all the 468 branches of Bank of Rajasthan went on strike across India on Monday to protest against the proposed merger with ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector bank.

In Jaipur, where the head office of Rajasthan Bank is located, employees gathered in large numbers and held demonstrations, chanting slogans against the management.

They allege one of the bank’s large shareholders have swindled the bank to the tune of millions of rupees prior to proposing the merger with ICICI Bank.

The All India Bank Employees Association is seeking a high level probe into the proposed merger.

[Dharmendra Rao, President, All India Bank Employees Assoc.]:    
"And employees are on strike against their bank's merger because of wrong doings of the management. And our demand is that deal of merging the Bank of Rajasthan with ICICI is a fraud and we want a joint parliamentary committee to investigate into this matter."

Employees are worried about their job security if the merger takes place.

[Sudha Jain, Bank of Rajasthan Employee]:
"Their working norms and our working norms are totally different, the ICICI bank is a foreign bank and our working procedure is nationalized and we have contact with the Indian banking association IBA and they don't have any contact with IBA and even their services are not permanent."

The Bank of Rajasthan employs 4,200 people across the country.