Hyderabad, Bhagalpur and Kolkata are set for a busy political Monday. The Bharatiya Janata Party has lined up three foot marches in three cities on November 2, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah leading the Hyderabad march and party president Nitin Nabin leading two marches in Bihar and West Bengal. All three walk under the same slogan: Loktantra Bachao, Arajakta Hatao, or Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy.
The timing is no accident. The marches come a day after the INDIA bloc filled Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on November 1, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The BJP says its marches are the answer to what it calls the opposition’s misinformation. The opposition says the revision has wrongly removed crores of names. That argument is now playing out on the streets, city by city.
Shah leads the Hyderabad march in the afternoon
In Hyderabad, Shah will lead what the Telangana BJP is calling a Maha Padayatra on Monday afternoon. The march is scheduled to start at 3 pm from the Dr Babu Jagjivan Ram statue opposite Nizam College at Basheerbagh, pass through the busy Abids area, and end at Mozamjahi Market at around 6 pm, where Shah is expected to address the gathering.
State BJP president N Ramchander Rao and Union Coal and Mines Minister G Kishan Reddy inspected the route and arrangements on Sunday. Minister of State for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar is also expected to walk with Shah, along with state leaders and party workers. The Telangana unit has said it plans five rallies across the state in this campaign.
The party’s message in Telangana is twofold. It wants to counter the INDIA bloc’s claim that the SIR exercise deleted 13 crore voters, and it wants to take on the Congress government in the state. Traffic diversions have been announced along the route.
Nabin walks twice: Bhagalpur in the morning, Kolkata in the evening
Nabin’s first padyatra begins at 11 am in Bhagalpur, Bihar, from Lajpat Park to Seva Jyoti Chowk at 12.30 pm. He then travels to Kolkata, where his second march starts at 3 pm from College Street and ends at Dharmatala at 5.30 pm.
The BJP has framed both marches as part of its nationwide campaign against what it describes as the opposition’s misinformation and organised anarchy. Bihar matters here for a second reason too: the state has just seen a row over two newly elected Independent MLCs joining the BJP, with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav demanding their disqualification under the anti-defection law.
Kolkata gives the campaign a second eastern stage on the same evening. College Street to Dharmatala is one of the city’s classic protest routes, and a 3 pm start means the march will run through the heart of the city’s afternoon.
Why the SIR fight has reached the streets
At the centre of all of this is the SIR, the Election Commission’s intensive revision of voter lists. The Commission says the exercise is needed to clean up the rolls and remove duplicate and ineligible entries. The opposition says it has been used to delete genuine voters and benefit the ruling party, a charge the BJP and the Commission both deny.
On Sunday in Delhi, tens of thousands of protesters marched to Ramlila Maidan behind Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other INDIA bloc leaders, chanting slogans against what they call vote theft and demanding Kumar’s resignation. The BJP’s response is that the Delhi protest was staged drama built on false claims.
That is the argument voters will hear twice today: on the streets of Hyderabad, Bhagalpur and Kolkata, and in the speeches that follow each march. Congress leaders have criticised Shah’s Hyderabad visit in return. The exchange shows how quickly a dispute about voter lists has turned into a contest over who gets to claim the language of democracy itself.
What to watch as the marches unfold
- Turnout in Hyderabad: the crowd from Basheerbagh to MJ Market will be read as a measure of the BJP’s counter-mobilisation in Telangana.
- Shah’s speech at MJ Market: expect a direct rebuttal of the 13 crore deletion claim and a sharp attack on the Congress campaign.
- Nabin’s double march: Bhagalpur in the morning and Kolkata in the evening is a deliberately punishing schedule, designed to show the new party president on the move.
- The next step in the SIR row: with both sides now marching, will the fight stay on the streets or return to Parliament and the courts?
For now, November 2 belongs to the foot march: three cities, three routes, one slogan, and two very different versions of what saving democracy means.
FAQs
Who is leading the BJP padyatras on November 2?
Union Home Minister Amit Shah leads in Hyderabad; BJP president Nitin Nabin leads in Bhagalpur and Kolkata.
What is the Hyderabad padyatra route and timing?
3 pm from the Babu Jagjivan Ram statue at Basheerbagh, via Abids, to Mozamjahi Market at around 6 pm.
What are Nabin’s march timings today?
Bhagalpur: 11 am to 12.30 pm, Lajpat Park to Seva Jyoti Chowk. Kolkata: 3 pm to 5.30 pm, College Street to Dharmatala.
Why is the BJP holding these marches now?
The marches follow the INDIA bloc’s November 1 rally in Delhi against the SIR voter-list revision, and the BJP says it wants to counter the opposition’s claims about voter deletions.
