CHENNAI: Amid protests against the CAA and the NRC, IT companies

Corporation and

on Monday found themselves come under backlash and calls for boycott on social media.

Reports of the companies’

participating at an upcoming Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (

) event in Chennai surfaced on

, prompting the

to launch attacks on the decisions by the executives to align themselves with a religious organisation.

A poster posted on Twitter by the user @YehLog showed that an upcoming event by the IT professionals wing of the RSS in Chennai counted Zoho founder

and Accenture MD and head of operations, Chennai,

among key speakers.

Retweeted close to 1,100 times at the time of filing this report, users on Twitter condemned the decision by the executives to align themselves with a religious organisation in their professional capacity, with calls to boycott the tech services offered by the companies.

Scheduled on February 2, the top tech executives are to share the stage with Anirudha Deshpande, the chief of All India Public Outreach at RSS, the post shows.

The backlash grew to an extent that Twitter users also went on to tag Accenture's global MD Julia Sweet to the update, bringing her attention to the event, and asking her to intervene.

"@Accenture MD and @zoho CEO are chief guests at an RSS event to be held in Chennai. It is time to avoid companies and their products supporting & strengthening Fascists," Twitter user Anivar Aravind wrote.

"Not going to call for a boycott, since to each his own. But I’m in a position to cancel all business with @zoho thanks to @svembu ‘s participation in this event," another Twitter user Sachin Tandon noted.

Twitter users also raised concerns about what such decisions by the executives means for their employees from minority communities.

Saravana Raja, a former employee of Zoho and a long-time critic of Vembu's candid take on politics, said the question for Zoho's employees and customers was whether to appreciate the founder's open political stand as it was in a way themselves supporting the RSS.

"In these troubled times of divisive politics ruining our secular fabric, everyone is picking a side. We can see it in the reactions to #JNUattack. So, pick a side and appreciate people who do the same, whether they are CEOs or ordinary citizens, " he wrote on Twitter.

Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu took directly to Twitter and tweeted from his account:

"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 attack."

Accenture's Ramachandran also took to Twitter to say that his participation in the event was all a misunderstanding. "I have no affiliation with this group and never agreed to speak at or attend this event," he said. The RSS wing has since then also amended the event details to exclude the executive's name.