Curated by KS Randhawa, Ludhiana Punjab
Updated: 6 November 2026, 3:32 AM IST
INDIA bloc parties and allied organisations held a “Save Vote, Save Country” protest at Freedom Park in Bengaluru on Thursday, November 5, opposing the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The demonstrators called for the exercise to be scrapped and demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president B.K. Hariprasad participated alongside leaders from the CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML) Liberation, Forward Bloc and Samajwadi Party. Actor and activist Prakash Raj and representatives of civil-society, student and youth organisations also attended. Reporting by The Week and the Times of India described the gathering and its political demands.
Mock arrest staged during the demonstration
A symbolic performance became one of the protest’s prominent visual moments: participants enacted the mock arrest of a person representing the Chief Election Commissioner. The staged action was a political demonstration, not an actual arrest. The protest was held under the broader opposition campaign against the SIR exercise.
Opposition says voters need protection
Shivakumar said the opposition would continue its agitation until voters whose names had been deleted from electoral rolls received justice, except in cases involving deceased voters. Hariprasad said the campaign would extend from Bengaluru to district headquarters, taluks and blocks. Prakash Raj argued that the movement should continue beyond the demand for the CEC’s resignation and press for the SIR to be withdrawn.
The opposition’s central allegation is that the SIR process lacks transparency and adequate safeguards, creating a risk that eligible voters could be left off electoral rolls. These are political allegations; they should not be treated as independently established findings or proof of deliberate, politically directed deletions.
Government invites parliamentary debate
Separately, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in Jaipur on 5 November that Congress should bring its objections to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) to Parliament for debate. He said the government would not hesitate to convene a special session if Congress formally sought one, and claimed that the SIR procedure had been followed more than ten times since 1947, including during Congress-led governments. These were the minister’s statements and political arguments; they do not resolve the opposition’s objections or constitute an Election Commission finding. The report reviewed did not identify a date for any proposed special session.
Five resolutions and the voter-roll figures
The protest meeting adopted five resolutions. As reported by The Week, the demands included withdrawing the SIR exercise, seeking Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, repealing the law governing the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner, restoring independence to the appointment process in accordance with Supreme Court directions, and urging the Karnataka government to reject the final SIR rolls and use the 2025 electoral rolls as the basis for forthcoming taluk and zilla panchayat elections.
The Week reported that Karnataka’s final electoral roll, published on October 27 after a 129-day revision exercise, contained 4,55,00,011 electors, compared with 5,54,32,314 before the revision — a reduction of 99,32,303. The Election Commission’s stated position, as reported in coverage of the final rolls, is that the revision followed prescribed procedures. The difference between the official explanation and the opposition’s criticism remains central to the dispute.
What happens next?
The INDIA bloc has said it will take the campaign beyond Bengaluru and organise further demonstrations across Karnataka. The next phase will test whether the alliance can sustain public participation and turn its demands into a wider political campaign. The available reports do not establish that the Election Commission has accepted the opposition’s demands or that the SIR exercise has been withdrawn.
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