Will march to Jantar Mantar on Oct 10 against SIR: CJP's Abhijit Dipke

Bengaluru: CJP leader Abhijit Dipke on Thursday called for a nationwide mobilisation against the SIR exercise and asserted that his party would march to Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on October 10 demanding that SIR be scrapped and accountability be fixed for the alleged deletion of voters.

The CJP leader said the agitation will go ahead even if its leaders are detained or arrested.

Addressing a press conference here, Dipke criticised the Centre for restricting public gatherings in the national capital.


Also read: Delhi on high alert ahead of October 10 CJP protest; around 23,000 security personnel to be deployed: Sources

"Jantar Mantar belongs to people of India, it does not belong to Union Home Minister Amit Shah," he said.

"If Mumbai and Bengaluru can have peaceful protests, why is Amit Shah not allowing it in Delhi?" asked the CJP founder.

Dipke urged political parties, civil society groups and social activists to come together to protect voting rights, alleging that large numbers of voters had been deleted and questioning the Election Commission's role in the exercise.

"SIR is the biggest scam that the central government, the BJP-ruled government, is pulling off to kill democracy in India," Dipke said, referring to testimonies of people who had allegedly been declared dead in electoral records despite producing Aadhaar, PAN and other valid documents to establish that they were alive.

Dipke questioned how living voters could be declared dead and their votes deleted.

According to him, the BJP and the Election Commission were working together to delete votes of people who did not support the ruling party.

Democracy was based on people choosing their government, whereas SIR, as he portrayed it, amounted to the government determining who could remain a voter. "The government is selecting who will be the voter and who will not vote," he said, describing the process as "unconstitutional".

Citing alleged deletions in constituencies associated with opposition leaders, Dipke referred to former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and questioned whether the instances were merely coincidences or reflected a pattern.

"If we believe that there is no involvement of the BJP with the Election Commission, then why is it always the opposition leaders who lose? And why does it always benefit the BJP?" he asked, calling for an explanation.

Dipke said the CJP would march to Jantar Mantar on October 10 to demand that SIR be scrapped and accountability be fixed for the alleged deletion of votes.

He questioned why protests could be held in Mumbai and Bengaluru but restrictions were being imposed on a gathering in Delhi.

The CJP founder said Delhi Police should learn from Karnataka police on how to protect rights of people.

Dipke also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, saying they did not own the country or Jantar Mantar and were only "servants with a fixed tenure to serve people".

He said the CJP was not seeking to destabilise the country and reiterated that its demand was for accountability from CEC Gyanesh Kumar and the Centre over the alleged deletion of votes.

CJP spokesperson Sourav Das alleged that people associated with the party and young participants in the movement were being subjected to "mass detentions" in several states, including UP, West Bengal and Delhi.

Also read: Bengaluru protests: CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke accuses PM Modi of 'murdering democracy, vote theft'

"None of us are afraid of arrests or detentions. The protest has to go on with or without us," he said.

Actor Prakash Raj, who addressed the gathering earlier, said Karnataka's civil society organisations had spent nearly a year documenting alleged irregularities in SIR and had taken their findings to different parts of the country.

He said the testimonies presented at the tribunal, including those of people allegedly declared dead in electoral records, showed the issue extended beyond Karnataka.

Raj appealed to the media to focus on SIR and said the young protesters heading to Delhi on October 10 had his solidarity and that of Karnataka's civil society groups.

He also said the movement had grown from a Karnataka-based campaign into a broader national struggle, and thanked the organisations and young activists who had participated in documenting alleged irregularities and bringing affected voters before the tribunal.