Karnataka Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar led a sit-in protest outside the office of the state’s Chief Electoral Officer in Bengaluru on 1 October, joined by sixteen cabinet ministers, several MLAs and an MP. The protesters demanded that a criminal case be registered over what they describe as a coordinated attempt to remove genuine voters from the rolls through bulk Form 7 objections during the Special Intensive Revision.
Shivakumar said about 13,000 such applications were filed and then withdrawn in the Ballari constituencies, and that a similar pattern showed up in Vijayapura and other places. He blamed the BJP and the Janata Dal for the alleged conspiracy and called it vote theft carried out on a systematic scale. According to him, the plan aimed to knock off thousands of voters in every one of the state’s 224 constituencies, with illegally obtained voter data such as EPIC numbers being used to file the forms. The government also wants the competent authorities to sanction prosecution so that the police can proceed against those responsible.
The protest follows an earlier investigation that flagged concentrated Form 7 filings against Muslim voters in Bhalki, and the state’s electoral office has reportedly ordered action against bulk filings targeting minority voters. Karnataka BJP leaders have meanwhile approached the police chief seeking a review of FIRs registered over the Form 7 filings, signalling that the row is turning into a direct clash between the ruling Congress and the opposition. The sit-in is unusual because a sitting chief minister and most of his cabinet physically protested at a constitutional authority’s office. It also fits into a wider national confrontation between the Congress-led bloc and the Election Commission over the revision exercise and the conduct of the Chief Election Commissioner.