Bengaluru police crackdown on anti-SIR protesters puts Karnataka Congress government in a spot

When D. K. Shivakumar cancelled his entire schedule, including an important Cabinet meeting, on October 1 and went to the Karnataka Election Commissioner’s office on Sheshadri Road, anti-SIR protesters who had been fighting for months said he was trying to save democracy. D. K. Shivakumar, along with his party colleagues, sat at the doors of the Election Commissioner’s office, demanding action over the BJP’s alleged Form 7 applications seeking the deletion of voters’ names. The next day, the BJP questioned how a Chief Minister could stage a dharna and obstruct the work of the Election Commission.

What followed was the Congress leadership in Delhi taking to the streets to meet the Election Commissioner, and being detained by Delhi Police. On October 10, social media posts criticised the way the Delhi Police handled the detention of CJP leaders, protesters and dozens of journalists covering the demonstration.

While Congress was on the streets of New Delhi for a mass rally yesterday, nearly 100 protesters gathered near Karnataka’s heavily fortified Chief Electoral Officer’s office to demonstrate against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Unable to get closer to the office, the protesters sat across the road near SJP College, holding anti-SIR placards. A police platoon arrived with buses and dragged the protesters away, tearing up placards bearing portraits of B. R. Ambedkar. The police also obstructed journalists covering the protest and tried to snatch cameras from photojournalists.

Women protesters locked their arms and legs together while chanting slogans against the SIR, Gyanesh Kumar and the Bengaluru Police for forcibly taking them away while they were peacefully protesting against the controversial electoral revision. Some of the protesters were forcibly dragged and beaten inside the buses.

One protester, whom The Week recorded, shouted, “This is the condition under the Congress-led government in Karnataka. In Delhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi are trying to get on the road and talk about democracy, while here, D. K. Shivakumar’s government is arresting peaceful women protesters.”

She was pointing to what she saw as the hypocrisy of the Congress government in Karnataka. Another protester shouted that only the Congress was allowed to protest near the Election Commission’s office, suggesting that the party wanted to portray itself as the sole protector of democracy.

As clips of women being dragged away and journalists being heckled went viral on social media, netizens criticised the government and the police.

The Bengaluru Police said the protesters assembled near K. R. Circle without permission, contrary to the Karnataka High Court’s directions to hold protests at designated places. After they refused to move to Freedom Park, they were taken into preventive custody and subsequently released. The police maintained that they had acted with restraint and sensitivity.

Home Minister Priyank Kharge responded to the backlash on Tuesday and said that the handling of the protesters by Bengaluru Police would be reviewed. He emphasised that the right to peaceful protest must be respected and protected, adding that peaceful dissent was a democratic right that law and order must safeguard.

The police’s handling of protesters who are fighting the same cause as Congress has put the Congress government in Karnataka in a spot.