Actor and activist Prakash Raj and several civil society activists were detained by Bengaluru police on Tuesday while attempting to march towards the Election Commission office as part of the ‘Election Commission Chalo’ protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The protest began at Freedom Park, with participants raising concerns over the deletion and categorisation of voters during the SIR exercise. Prakash Raj had earlier questioned the removal of voters marked as absent or permanently shifted and demanded that they be given an opportunity to establish their eligibility rather than being forced to enrol again.
The marchers were stopped by police as they attempted to proceed towards the Election Commission on Sheshadri Road. Actor Prakash Raj and actor Kishore were detained along with other activists as a preventive measure and taken away in buses.
The protest comes days after the publication of Karnataka’s draft electoral roll. According to the Chief Electoral Officer’s data, 1.07 crore entries were categorised under ASDDO - Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and Others - while another 43.8 lakh voters were flagged under anomalies and No Mapping categories.
Prakash Raj had described the SIR process as a threat to citizens’ voting rights and called for public participation in the protest ‘for every citizen’s dignity’.
