Members of SIR Virodhi Jatyatita Pakshagalu - Janapara Sanghatanegala Okkuta T. Bheemaraya and Mahantappa Sanghavi addressing a press conference in Kalaburagi on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: ARUN KULKARNI
A protest against Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls will be organised at Ambedkar Circle in Bidar on Saturday at 11 a.m., Eddelu Karnataka district coordinator Omprakash Rotte said on Wednesday.Addressing a press conference at the District Press Club in Bidar, Mr. Rotte said that as many as 39 organisations representing minority communities, Dalit groups, backward classes and progressive organisations will participate in the agitation.After the protest, participants will march to the office of the Assistant Commissioner and submit a memorandum addressed to the President and the Chief Minister.He said that an alliance of secular parties and people’s organisations has called for a State-wide Karnataka Pratirodha protest against the SIR process.“The first phase of protests will be held in all district headquarters across the State with the message: ‘This is neither Bihar nor Bengal, but Basavanna’s Karnataka’,” he said.Stating that the Centre and the Election Commission are attempting to deprive crores of people of their voting rights through the SIR process, Mr. Rotte claimed that nearly 6.5 crore names have been deleted from electoral rolls in 13 States where the exercise has already been undertaken.“Most of them are genuine voters,” he claimed.While clarifying that nobody opposed revision of voter lists, he criticised what he described as a “democracy-threatening process” in which voters are being treated as suspects and removed from the rolls on minor technical grounds.Advisory committee member Mohammed Nizamuddin said that in Bihar, thousands of people have been denied voting rights under the pretext of “logical discrepancy” despite possessing valid documents.He said that married women, nomadic communities, tribals, Dalits, rural poor and minorities are among those the most affected.Professor Vittal Das Pyage said that the real objective of the SIR process is not to identify infiltrators but to politically target communities supporting Opposition parties.He claimed that it is “as dangerous as the CAA and NRC exercises”.Dalit Sangharsh Samiti State organising convener Maruti Baudde said that the Karnataka Pratirodha movement will send out a message that Karnataka, the land of the Sharanas, Sufis and saints, will not accept what he called anti-people policies.RPI (Ambedkar) State coordinator Mahesh Goranalkar described the movement as a democratic struggle to protect the voting and constitutional rights of citizens and appealed to people to support it.Lingayat leader Basavakumar Patil, KPCC State general secretary Abdul Mannan Seth, Karnataka Rashtra Samiti district president Hanamant Matte, AAP district president Siddappa Phulari and SDPI district general secretary Mohammed Mohsin also addressed the press conference. Published - May 28, 2026 07:58 pm IST
