Farmer and Dalit organisations in Karnataka have joined a statewide protest planned for October 23 against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, with organisers demanding that the exercise be withdrawn and that the Election Commission’s functioning be reworked.
The protest, described by organisers as a ‘Jantar Mantar’ agitation, was announced at a press conference on Monday. Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha president Badagalapura Nagendra said the campaign would be held across the state in the name of protecting democracy. The report did not specify the locations, timings or police permissions for the proposed demonstrations.
The organisations demanded the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and a judicial inquiry into his functioning. They also called for a change in the method of selecting Election Commission commissioners, saying the process should be made democratic and fair. The groups further demanded that electoral rolls be revised again under new commissioners through a process they described as citizen-friendly.
The demands extend beyond the revision exercise itself. The organisers called for all elections held after the introduction of the SIR to be annulled and conducted again. They also demanded that Jantar Mantar continue to be preserved as a designated site for protests and that cases filed against young people who participated in earlier agitations be withdrawn.
Dalit leader N. Venkatesh described the campaign against the SIR as a ‘second freedom struggle’, while another Dalit leader, Gur Prasad Keregodu, expressed support for replacing electronic voting machines with ballot papers in future elections. Farmer leader Chukki Nanjundaswamy alleged that the revision process could exclude communities that had historically faced social exclusion. These were political statements made by the protest participants and were not independently established in the report.
Actor Prakash Raj also addressed the gathering and urged citizens to hold governments accountable for alleged violence against children and farmers. He said young people involved in protests had faced violence and imprisonment for carrying the national flag and demonstrating through constitutional and non-violent methods. The report did not provide details of the cases or incidents referred to in his remarks.
The proposed agitation brings together farmer groups, Dalit organisations, political representatives and other public figures around a dispute over the administration of electoral rolls. MLA Darshan Puttannaiah and leaders including T. Yashwanth, Shivaprakash, Kumar Samatala, Indudhar Honnapur, V. Nagaraj, Basavaraj Kauthal and Kariyappa Gudimani were reported to have attended the press conference.
Organisers said the campaign would be expanded across all districts through a federation of farmer and Dalit organisations. They stated that the protests would continue until the SIR was withdrawn and Gyanesh Kumar resigned. The next reported milestone is the statewide mobilisation scheduled for October 23.
