Actor and activist Prakash Raj has announced that YouTuber and political commentator Dhruv Rathee will join a protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengaluru on October 8. The event is scheduled to take place at Freedom Park from 10:30 am.
The protest is being organised by the Cockroach Janta Party and allied civil society and youth organisations. Organisers have announced a People’s Tribunal as part of the programme. The event is expected to hear accounts from people who say they have faced problems during the electoral roll revision process.
A separate “Chappal Protest” has also been announced as part of the programme. Organisers say the action is being held in solidarity with women journalists who have alleged harassment. The claims and the circumstances surrounding them remain matters of public and legal discussion.
Prakash Raj has been campaigning against the SIR process in Karnataka for several weeks. He previously announced an “Election Commission Chalo” campaign and raised concerns about the deletion and verification of voter records.
Dhruv Rathee’s participation was announced by Prakash Raj on October 7. Prakash Raj said Rathee would be the special guest at the Bengaluru event and appealed to people to attend the programme.
The protest comes amid continuing debate over Karnataka’s electoral roll revision. The draft roll released after the SIR exercise recorded more than 1.08 crore voter entries under the ASDDO categories, including absent, shifted, dead, duplicate and other classifications. Around 43.8 lakh voters were also identified for notices relating to logical discrepancies or verification.
Critics of the exercise have argued that genuine voters could face difficulties if their names are incorrectly excluded or if they receive notices requiring additional verification. The Election Commission, however, has described the process as an exercise to clean and update electoral rolls, including identifying duplicate and other problematic entries.
The figures being cited by protesters should therefore be understood in context. The more than 1.08 crore figure refers to entries classified under ASDDO categories in the draft-roll process, rather than a finding that all those people were wrongly deleted. The 43.8 lakh figure refers to voters requiring further verification.
The Bengaluru protest is expected to bring together civil society groups, activists and people who say they have been affected by the SIR process. Security arrangements around Freedom Park are also expected to be strengthened because of the expected gathering.
The event could become another major flashpoint in the ongoing debate over electoral roll revision in Karnataka, particularly as political parties and civil society groups continue to question the process and the Election Commission defends its objective of maintaining accurate voter lists.