The INDIA bloc has announced a protest at Bengaluru’s Freedom Park on November 5 against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, beginning a state-level mobilisation that the alliance says will later extend to districts and taluks across Karnataka.
The announcement was made on Tuesday at a press conference at the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee office. Karnataka Congress chief B K Hariprasad said the Bengaluru demonstration would form part of the INDIA bloc’s nationwide agitation against the electoral-roll revision exercise and its demand for the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner.
Hariprasad described the proposed protest as a continuation of the INDIA bloc demonstration held at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on November 1. He said the alliance had decided to intensify its campaign across the country and take it to taluk and block levels. In Karnataka, he said, the mobilisation would begin with the state-level protest in Bengaluru before moving to district and taluk centres.
Freedom Park is Bengaluru’s designated protest venue and has hosted demonstrations on political, civic and public-interest issues. The announcement places the November 5 event within the city’s established framework for organised public assembly. The supplied report does not provide details of expected attendance, police permissions, traffic diversions or public transport arrangements.
Hariprasad alleged that the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were misusing constitutional institutions to undermine democracy. He said the agitation would continue until Gyanesh Kumar resigned. These allegations were made by the Congress leader at the press conference and were not independently assessed in the supplied report.
CPI(M) state secretary K Prakash said the INDIA bloc’s demands included scrapping the SIR exercise, the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner and changes to the process for appointing the CEC. He said the appointment process should follow the directions of the Supreme Court. Prakash also demanded the withdrawal of the law that, according to him, grants permanent immunity to the Chief Election Commissioner.
The CPI(M) leader said all constituents of the INDIA bloc would participate in the proposed mobilisation and that the agitation would subsequently be taken to district and taluk levels across Karnataka. CPI leader Saathi Sundaresh, Forward Bloc leaders Mahantesh Shivashankar and Ali, and CPI(ML) leader Clifton D’Rozario were among those present at the press conference.
The immediate civic details of the Freedom Park protest, including the start time, route arrangements, police deployment and any traffic advisories, were not specified in the announcement reported by Deccan Chronicle. The next stated step is the state-level demonstration in Bengaluru on November 5.
