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Bengaluru reverberates with CJP’s ‘Vote chor, gaddi chhod’ cry, Dhruv Rathee, Prakash Raj join protest

At CJP’s Bengaluru protest, demonstrators expressed solidarity with the opposition campaign, chanting “Vote chor, gaddi chhod”, “Gyanesh, it’s done bro” and “Error 404”, while others decried dictatorship and “vote theft”, and posters of Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose appeared.

Freedom Park in Bengaluru witnessed a large gathering at a Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led protest on Thursday, with protesters demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accused of helming the process of deleting voters’ names from the electoral rolls, while the gathering itself glimmered with the presence of high-profile figures, including YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, actor Prakash Raj and Alt News founder Mohammed Zubair.

Hundreds gathered at the park, echoing the Congress-led INDIA bloc protests in central Delhi that brought parts of the capital to a near-standstill on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a third round of demonstrations expected later in the day.

At the heart of the agitation was a common demand: Kumar must step down as head of the Election Commission of India, the constitutional body entrusted with conducting free and fair elections to Parliament and the state legislatures.

The CEC has faced mounting criticism after The Indian Express reported last month that the other two election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had repeatedly raised objections to aspects of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Their concerns reportedly included alleged “illegal” changes to Form 6, used for voter registration, as well as the centralisation of control over ECINET, the Election Commission’s voter-roll database.

The Election Commission rolled back the changes to Form 6 and announced special drives to re-enrol voters who had been left out of the rolls.

At the Bengaluru protest, demonstrators said they had gathered to express solidarity with the opposition campaign, and their anger was reflected in slogans such as “Vote chor, gaddi chhod”, “Gyanesh, it’s done bro” and “Error 404”. Others shouted that dictatorship and “vote theft” would not be tolerated, while posters portraying freedom fighters Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose were also displayed.

Protesters further demanded a formal investigation into alleged irregularities in the SIR process. Shakil Basha, a member of the Social Democratic Party of India, alleged that he had witnessed instances in which Muslim and Dalit voters’ names were removed from electoral rolls while working with poll officials.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi vowed that the INDIA bloc’s agitation would continue until Kumar resigned, as the Delhi Police imposed restrictions on large gatherings around Rajghat. Kumar could also face renewed scrutiny over a 2006 bribery allegation, after the Kerala government directed its Vigilance Bureau to reopen the case.

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