Bengaluru police detained protesters, including students, senior citizens, activists and lawyers, before they could begin a march to the Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office on Monday, October 12. They were demanding the scrapping of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Photojournalists Pushkar V of Deccan Herald and Syed Asif of The Times of India were also allegedly manhandled. Pushkar was manhandled and beaten by four police personnel. According to a press note issued by the organisers, three other journalists were manhandled. Eyewitnesses also stated that women protesters were also severely manhandled by the police.
The organisers alleged that police confiscated placards before detaining protesters, some of whom had not yet begun marching.
The protesters had gathered to condemn the police action against demonstrators, lawyers, journalists and youth activists in Delhi on October 10. The organisers alleged that police personnel pushed and dragged protesters into buses, beat young people and pulled at the clothes of women protesters.
The demonstration was organised under the My Vote, My Right campaign, which has been demanding the withdrawal of the SIR since October 2025. The protesters had planned to submit a memorandum to the Karnataka CEO seeking cancellation of the revision exercise, restoration of electoral rolls as they stood in January 2025, and Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.
In the memorandum, the signatories said they had lost faith in the SIR process, alleging arbitrary deletions of eligible voters, procedural irregularities and a lack of transparency and accountability. They argued that the exercise risked depriving marginalised communities of their voting rights.
The memorandum said that more than one crore names had been deleted from Karnataka’s electoral rolls and that many affected voters were unable to get their names reinstated even through Form 6 applications. It identified street vendors, migrant workers, single women, LGBTQIA+ people, Dalits and religious minorities among those at risk of exclusion.
The signatories also alleged widespread misuse of Form 7, which allows objections to the inclusion of names in electoral rolls. They said such objections had created opportunities for politically motivated attempts to remove eligible voters, particularly Muslims and Dalits.
The memorandum said nearly 29,000 Form 7 applications seeking the deletion of names from Karnataka’s electoral rolls were missing from the Election Commission of India’s records. It also alleged that figures released in the CEO’s press statements had repeatedly differed from those on the Commission’s official portal.
Although FIRs had been registered in cases involving alleged misuse of Form 7, the memorandum questioned why Assistant Electoral Registration Officers had not filed complaints in these cases and why lawyers representing the authorities had allegedly failed to oppose bail applications or stays. These are allegations raised by the signatories.
The protesters also cited an investigation by The Indian Express that found Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions and orders concerning electoral rolls, some of which they said had been taken without their knowledge. The Election Commission subsequently described the objections as part of its decision-making process and maintained that its decisions had been unanimous.
The memorandum further questioned changes made to Form 6, the application used to register as a voter, alleging that the Election Commission had introduced unlawful changes. It referred to Supreme Court proceedings concerning the form and argued that the changes could make it harder for eligible citizens to enrol.
It said the difficulties faced by people in producing documents, migration-related issues, discrepancies in names and objections to their inclusion could disproportionately affect marginalised communities. The signatories warned that their exclusion from electoral rolls would deepen existing inequalities in democratic representation.
The memorandum also asked whether the ECI was acting independently or in accordance with the wishes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The protesters demanded the immediate cancellation of the SIR in Karnataka, restoration of the January 2025 electoral rolls and safeguards against arbitrary deletions and misuse of the objection process. They also called for future revisions to be conducted transparently and in accordance with the law.
“If you are unable or unwilling to take these measures and restore public confidence in the electoral process, you must resign from your post,” the memorandum stated, addressing the Chief Electoral Officer.
The detentions in Bengaluru came two days after police detained at least 50 students from the All India Students’ Association (AISA) at Freedom Park on October 10, as they prepared to march to the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer’s office to protest. The students said they were detained before they could begin marching, while police maintained that they had attempted to move beyond the designated protest site. The detentions drew criticism, as the Congress government in Karnataka has opposed the SIR exercise at the national level.
The crackdown comes amidst large-scale protests in Delhi, where police detained Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke and co-convenors Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das on October 10, ahead of a planned demonstration at Jantar Mantar demanding the CEC’s resignation. The three were detained after their flight from Mumbai landed in Delhi and were placed under preventive arrest under Sections 126 and 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), police said.
They were produced before an executive magistrate and released on October 11, subject to conditions relating to maintaining peace. CJP said it would continue its protests against the SIR exercise.
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