Pressing his party's demand for employment to 'sons of soil', Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray has warned the post master general to give priority to locals for the post office jobs or else cancel the recruitment procedure.

"Vacancies in Maharashtra post offices should be filled by local people only. It will give justice to them and influx of outsiders can be controlled," Raj said in a letter written to post master general M S Bali.

Objecting to an advertisement published on October 23, about vacancies of postmen in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai in national newspapers, Raj said this encouraged lakhs of outsiders to apply.

"Lakhs of applications have been received for the posts from across the nation due to advertisement published in national newspapers for local jobs," Raj said, adding, "the same advertisement could have been given in local papers."

On the recruitment norms, Raj said "the post office manual says the applicant should be 10th standard pass with knowledge of the state language which is Marathi in this case."

"However, the advertisement said that knowledge of local language is desirable, which means applicants should know any local language, not necessarily Marathi," he said.

Raj also claimed that about 50,000 outsiders have applied for the job and the whole recruitment process should be cancelled by the post office.

'MNS told SBI to recruit only Maharashtra-domiciled candidates'

The MNS had asked State Bank of India to recruit only Maharashtra domiciled candidates as clerical staff in the bank's state branches, Parliament was informed.

"SBI has reported that MNS had submitted a representation asking the bank for recruitment of clerical staff in Maharashtra from state domiciled candidates only," Minister of State for Finance, Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

He said following the representation, the bank had taken up the issue with state law enforcing agencies requesting them to make adequate arrangement so that examinations could be held smoothly.

The Union government on its part, Meena said, had taken up the issue with the state and requested the Home and Cabinet secretaries to take necessary steps.

Written examinations were held on November 8, 15 and 22 smoothly, the minister informed.