BENGALURU: Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Election Commission of India of “murdering democracy” and “vote theft”, at a massive protest here on Thursday.
Taking part in ‘People’s Tribunal’, organised by civil society groups, citizen forums, CJP and allied organisations at Freedom Park against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Dipke said they would continue their agitation until Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resigned.
The agitators demanded that the SIR exercise be scrapped and pre-SIR electoral rolls restored. Thousands of protesters had gathered at the venue. Voters from Bengaluru and other parts of Karnataka shared their experiences of alleged exclusion from the electoral rolls. Video testimonials from people claiming to have been affected by the SIR process were also played. Protesters raised slogans, including “Vote theft”, “Don’t erase us, hear us” and “Grand Theft Democracy”.
Dipke alleged that voter deletions under SIR were aimed at disenfranchising those opposed to the BJP. “We will hit the streets, reclaim democracy and continue the agitation till the CEC resigns,” he added.
Claiming that people whose names had been deleted were present at the agitation, Dipke said, “People who were declared dead are standing here. So the death is not the death of these people. It is the death of democracy in this country.”