AISA condemns detention of SIR protesters in Bengaluru, asks how Congress differs from BJP

The All India Students' Association (AISA) Karnataka on Saturday, October 10, condemned the detention of protesters at a demonstration in Bengaluru against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, calling it an illegal suppression of the democratic right to protest and questioning how the Congress-led state government differs from the BJP.

In a press release, AISA said the protest, called by Left student organisations including AISA, the Students' Federation of India (SFI), the All India Democratic Students' Association (AIDSO) and the All India Students' Federation (AISF), had been met with heavy police deployment. The protesters were demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. 

AISA said hundreds of police personnel were deployed and roads were barricaded from both sides to stop protesters from reaching the Election Commission office, which is a few hundred metres away from Freedom Park, the designated protest site in Bengaluru.

The organisation alleged that the situation escalated when the police began detaining protesters before they could march towards the state EC office. 

Saniya, a post graduate student of English literature, said that the police had barricaded the roads to block access from Freedom Park to Nirvachan Sadan, the CEO office on Palace Road. Around noon, the protesters decided to march towards the CEO office. 

“Some of us tried to climb the barricades, and I fell down when the police pulled me. Others like me who fell down were picked up by the police. Each person was restrained by four-five cops. We were put in buses and taken to the police grounds in Chamarajpet. We were let off after about two hours,” Saniya told TNM. 

Bengaluru Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh said that protesters had been taken into detention as they had been granted permission only to stage a demonstration and not to march towards the Chief Electoral Officer’s office. 

AISA pointed to what it described as a contradiction in the Congress's position. It said the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Rahul Gandhi stands on barricades, breaks through them and speaks about the right to protest, while his party's government in Karnataka was using the same tactics of barricading roads and preventing people from exercising that right.

The organisation also said that the protestors were being prevented from protesting freely within Freedom Park.

"If the Congress wants to present itself as an alternative to the BJP, it must demonstrate this through its actions, not merely through words and political statements," AISA said in the press release, adding that the right to protest cannot be defended selectively when a party is in opposition and suppressed when it is in power.

AISA demanded that the Karnataka government immediately stop the detentions, release those detained, remove the barricades and allow the protest to proceed peacefully. It also demanded that all spaces within Freedom Park that have remained barricaded for the past five years be opened up, so that citizens can exercise their democratic rights without intimidation or obstruction.

"If the Congress government in Karnataka resorts to the same methods of repression, prevents peaceful protests and curtails democratic rights, then how is the Congress different from the BJP?" the organisation asked.