Thousands of people gathered at Bengaluru’s Freedom Park on October 8 for a protest and public hearing against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, with organisers demanding the cancellation of the process and accountability from the Election Commission.
The state-level event, described as a ‘Janata Nyayalaya’, was organised by a coalition of secular parties and public-interest organisations opposed to the SIR exercise. The programme was held for people who the organisers said had been affected by the voter-list revision process.
According to Prajavani’s live report, retired Supreme Court judges were expected to hear the grievances of people at the public hearing. Writer Devanur Mahadeva, actor and social activist Prakash Raj, economist Parakala Prabhakar, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee and leaders of the Cockroach Janata Party, including Abhijit Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were listed among the participants.
The protest platform saw speeches, protest songs and statements opposing the conduct of the revision. YouTuber Dhruv Rathee alleged that the Election Commission had shown “zero transparency and zero accountability” in the SIR process, according to the report. The allegation was not independently established in the material supplied for this report.
Prakash Raj said the campaign was not limited to seeking the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner. “Even if another person comes in their place, there will be no use. Our demand is that the SIR process should be completely cancelled,” he was quoted as saying.
The event attracted participants from across Karnataka, as well as members of the Aam Aadmi Party, left-wing student organisations, civil society groups and members of the public. Private-school teachers also joined the gathering and spoke against the revision process, the report said.
Organisers said the protest would remain peaceful. The report also carried an allegation, attributed to unnamed senior BJP sources, that right-wing groups were being mobilised across the country to attack peaceful protesters. No independent confirmation of that allegation was provided. CJP workers said they would not resort to violence and would not tolerate violence against citizens.
Separately, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president B.K. Hariprasad and Congress workers held a protest outside the KPCC headquarters, demanding the resignation of Chief Electoral Officer Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the SIR process. That allegation, too, was reported as a political claim and was not independently verified in the supplied material.
The protests place the administration of electoral rolls at the centre of a wider public dispute over transparency, accountability and the ability of citizens to challenge changes affecting their electoral registration. The next formal step announced in the report was the public hearing at Freedom Park, where the coalition said grievances from affected people would be presented before the invited retired judges and other public figures.
