Zomato delivery partners protest 'China Funding'

BENGALURU: Some Kolkata-based delivery executives of Zomato staged a protest in the city on Saturday, claiming to show their anger at the firm's China-based investor Alibaba, whose financial affiliate Ant Financial holds about 26% stake in the platform.

The videos of these protests, which show a group of purportedly Zomato employees burning the company uniform, first surfaced on Twitter and comes amid wider anti-China rhetoric in the country following an over month-long border standoff that claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers earlier this month.

"Indian army jawans have been killed, but Zomato loves China," these protestors were heard as saying in a video footage posted on Twitter. could not independently verify whether these protests were indeed related to the raging anti-China sentiment in the country or if there were more localised issues at play.


When contacted, a spokesperson for Zomato said, "This protest was conducted by a small number of delivery partners in Behala (Kolkata) who had their contracts terminated recently for repeatedly violating our platform guidelines. Unfortunately, in their spite, they decided to get themselves heard by riding the wave of a sensitive sentiment."