Perhaps for the first time, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has come out openly against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across the country and decided to join other opposition parties in nationwide protests, albeit independently.
The BRS issued a statement on Friday demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The party said it would stage a protest outside the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in Hyderabad on Saturday.
The party is also planning to take its campaign against the SIR exercise to Delhi after the Hyderabad demonstration.
“The details of the next phase of agitation will be announced later,” the statement said.
The BRS also expressed concern over alleged large-scale deletion of voters from constituencies represented by its MLAs in Telangana.
It demanded a comprehensive and independent inquiry to determine whether the revision process had resulted in the wrongful exclusion of eligible voters.
In a separate post on X, BRS working president K T Rama Rao called for an investigation under the supervision of a Supreme Court judge and demanded that Gyanesh Kumar resign on moral grounds.
KTR invoked the Constitution and citizens’ voting rights to argue that no individual should be placed above the institution they are entrusted with serving.
“Nothing is greater than the Constitution of India. And no Indian citizen can be stripped of their right to vote. Gyanesh Kumar must go! No individual is above the institution,” he wrote.
Questioning the need to protect an individual at the cost of public confidence in a constitutional institution, KTR said the country had seen several people occupy positions of authority without its constitutional foundations being weakened.
“This nation has seen many individuals come and go — it has stayed strong; it has survived beautifully. So why this desperation to protect one man? How can one man be greater than the rights of 1.4 billion Indians?” he asked.
KTR further said the time had come for Kumar to step down and criticised what he described as attempts to create a “quasi-system” that could undermine the country’s democratic foundations.
The BRS working president reiterated the party’s demand that the Supreme Court take suo motu cognisance of the alleged irregularities in the SIR process and order an independent investigation headed by a sitting judge.
