Roars of “vote chor, gaddi chhod” (vote thief, give up your position) rang out during the five-hour protest at Freedom Park in Bengaluru on Thursday, October 8, demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.
The protest, called by Karnataka civil society groups including Eddelu Karnataka and in which Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Abhijit Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka also participated, demanded scrapping the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) along with Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.
Kannada writer Devanoor Mahadeva, filmmaker Kavita Lankesh, AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair, and retired Supreme Court judge Gopal Gowda also participated in the protest.
The slogan that dominated the protest was “vote chor, gaddi chhod”, with protesters taking it up every now and then on their own.
The Bengaluru protest is among a series of protests called by various groups – civil society groups, political parties, and student groups affiliated with political parties – all over the country in the wake of the Indian Express investigation.
The Indian Express on September 25 reported that Election Commissioners Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu had objected to several unilateral rules introduced by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the SIR process. These include alterations to Form 6 (adding new voters) and changes to access on the ECI’s software, ECI-NET, which prevented access to Electoral Registration Officers to add voters to the electoral rolls after holding hearings.
The exposé has triggered a wave of protests across the country, with civil society groups, political parties and the wider public responding in different ways. While the CJP has called for protests, the INDIA bloc led by the Congress staged protests in Delhi for two days, with about 300 MPs from the Opposition being detained by the Delhi police as they attempted to march to Jantar Mantar on Wednesday. The CJP has called another protest in Delhi on October 10.
Organisers of the protest in Bengaluru brought several people who were at risk of losing their voter ID cards to the protest. These included people falsely declared dead or issued notices under the SIR process and were unsure if they had convinced the ERO of their eligibility.
Speaking during the protest, Abhijit Dipke told the gathering that the first wicket was former Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and that the second wicket would have to be Gyanesh Kumar.
“If not, they will come with delimitation. They will reduce the representation of the south. They want to reduce the representation of south India in Parliament. We will never let the delimitation happen because it’s the south that will lead India. The south will lead the fight to save democracy and will lead India in the future,” Abhijeet said.
“Narendra Modi might have power, but the streets belong to us. We need to be resilient like cockroaches because cockroaches never die… One nation, one election is just a slogan. The real intention is one party, one nation,” Abhijieet said.
He closed his speech with the slogan “Gyanu, it’s done, bro,” which the audience enthusiastically joined in. As Abhijit called “Gyanu”, the crowd responded with, “It’s done, bro."
The crowd was especially loud when influencer and YouTuber Dhruv Rathee took the mic, with practically everyone recording his speech with their phones held high in the air.
Dhruv, who has been the target of intense right-wing ire ever since his appearance at the October 8 event was made public, began his speech saying he was not out to effect a “regime change” in India. “I don’t want to change the regime, nor do I want to change the government. I have not been funded by George Soros or Elon Musk. I paid for my own travel. Narendra Modi must be wondering what my problem is. I want to tell him that all people are in trouble.”
He said that what was happening in India concerned every resident of India, regardless of which party they voted for. “Many BJP voters aren’t convinced that vote chori is happening. I would like to tell them three things, for which Gyanesh Kumar, PM Narendra Modi or Amit Shah must answer,” Dhruv said.
Dhruv then spoke about the 70,000 voters in West Bengal who were not allowed to vote while their appeals were being decided. “Real genuine voters, who were on the rolls before the election and then after the election, but not during the election. There was a narrative that these people were dead or infiltrators… tell us why these voters were added back.”
He also mentioned about 65 lakh voters in Bihar who were taken off the electoral rolls. “Gyanesh Kumar did not think it necessary to make public who these people were, their names and addresses. Gyanesh Kumar hid this until the SC ordered him to disclose it. The ECI does not disclose information until forced to do so. There is no transparency.”
Lastly, he referred to a recent expose by The Reporters’ Collective which found that 14 lakh names were “mysteriously” added to the electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh. “The names of the voters who were added to the electoral rolls were not made public. Neither are the names which were deleted nor the names which were added made public.”
He also referred to the predicament Goan voters found themselves in. After hearings, they were found to be genuine voters, but Electoral Registration Officers could not add them back on the rolls because their access had been cut off.
Actor Prakash Raj, who participated in an anti-SIR jatha that travelled across several parts of the state in the weeks before the protest, delivered the closing remarks.
Referring to the immunity granted to the Election Commissioners by the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act 2023, Prakash said,
“We want judicial immunity to the Election Commission removed… Gyanesh Kumar is only pulling the trigger. We will not (rest) until we bring down the guys who ordered him to pull the trigger, Modi, Amit Shah and this government. Let us all take a resolve. This is a fight to save our democracy. This is a fight to save our Constitution.”
The event saw a large turnout, with activists and many student organisations taking part.
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