4 min readKolkata, New DelhiJun 29, 2026 05:55 AM IST
The Opposition has hit out at the Centre after The Telegraph’s former editor, R Rajagopal, alleged that his passport had not been renewed following the deletion of his name from the electoral rolls in West Bengal during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list.
In a statement on Sunday, the Editors Guild of India condemned the bureaucracy’s “treatment” of Rajagopal, who said in a note on social media that he missed his daughter’s wedding in the United States because he did not possess an active passport.
On Sunday, Rajagopal told The Indian Express that he received a call from the police in the first week of April. “I think, in the first week of April, a police official called me from the Ballygunge police station and summoned me for police verification. He told me to carry my documents. When I asked which document, he told me, ‘Voter ID card.’ Then I told him, ‘But my name has been deleted from the electoral roll on March 27,’” Rajagopal said.
Efforts to renew his passport since then have been unsuccessful, and he has received an appointment to appear before the Regional Passport Office (RPO) on July 17, he said. A senior police officer, who did not wish to be identified, confirmed that Rajagopal’s application is now with the RPO since the police couldn’t verify it.
The Indian Express reached out to the Kolkata Police and the state Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office for an official comment on the matter, but did not receive a response.
Rajya Sabha MP and Congress leader Vivek Tankha told The Indian Express, “I find this so irrational. His (Rajagopal’s) name has been deleted from the voter list. If someone asks me to bring my father’s matriculation certificate, I wouldn’t be able to find it. I am 69 years old and might not be able to locate my own matriculation certificate because it might be with the Bar Council.”
CPI’s Rajya Sabha MP P Sandosh Kumar called the incident “alarming”, telling The Indian Express, “India is not the Sangh Parivar’s karayala (workplace). Rajagopal’s experience is an eye-opener.”
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CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby posted on X, “Right from the outset, the CPI(M) had warned that the SIR exercise would disenfranchise the poor and vulnerable sections of our country. But now, even an editor of repute and an acclaimed journalist like R Rajagopal has been denied his right to vote.”
Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose called the incident “shocking and heart-rending”.
“If this can happen to R. Rajagopal, former Editor of a prominent newspaper, one can imagine what citizens with far fewer resources are going through. Deleted from the electoral roll. Denied the right to vote. Passport renewal stalled for 100 days because of an adverse police report linked to that deletion. Forced to miss his own daughter’s wedding abroad. And then told a passport is ‘not proof of citizenship’. This is what the slow erosion of basic citizenship rights looks like,” she posted on X.
In a statement, the Editors Guild said it “condemns the manner in which Rajagopal is being treated by the bureaucracy that gets to decide who is an Indian citizen and who is not”.