BENGALURU: Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has called a video meeting of Congress MLAs and MLCs at 4pm Tuesday to discuss the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The SIR has been the biggest issue before the Congress in recent weeks, with the party launching a campaign against the Election Commission. Within the party, there have been constant complaints that the SIR has affected all MLAs, but that is a different kind of problem from the one the Congress has been raising on public platforms. While protests demanding the Chief Election Commissioner’s removal are aimed at a national audience, an MLA whose constituency rolls have been altered faces a local risk, since the voters affected are the ones he or she depends on.
By calling all MLAs and MLCs together, Shivakumar can understand how the revision affected constituencies, before he makes the case in Delhi. He is signalling that the party’s response will not be rallies alone, with a series of meetings planned in Delhi.
The party’s campaign against SIR has so far been led by Shivakumar himself. He joined the September 26 protest at Freedom Park in Bengaluru, where he accused the Election Commission of acting as a “puppet” of the BJP and demanded that the exercise be cancelled and redone. He has also alleged that Form 7 applications are being used to remove votes of Dalits, minorities, backward classes and SC/STs.
