Opposition slams Centre as ex-editor’s passport held up over voter roll deletion

The opposition has targeted the Centre after former The Telegraph editor R. Rajagopal revealed his passport renewal was blocked due to his name being purged from West Bengal's voter list during a controversial Special Intensive Revision exercise

New Delhi: The Congress, Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) attacked the Centre after former The Telegraph editor R Rajagopal said his passport renewal had been stalled following the deletion of his name from West Bengal’s electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

Opposition leaders said that the plight of Rajagopal reflected a wider erosion of citizens’ rights.

---

Rajagopal, in a detailed note, said he found himself in a “state of civic uncertainty”, spending much of his time reconstructing decades-old family records after an adverse police report linked to his omission from the electoral rolls held up his passport renewal.

“Like nearly 27 lakh other residents of West Bengal, I was excluded on account of what were described as ‘logical discrepancies’. No reason was furnished even after I submitted my matriculation certificate, and my appeal is now pending before one of the tribunals constituted pursuant to the Supreme Court’s directions,” Rajagopal wrote.

“More distressing has been the fate of my passport renewal application. Although I completed the biometric formalities on March 19, 2026, police verification has not been cleared because my name no longer appears on the electoral roll,” he added.

He said his intention was not to portray himself as a victim but to highlight the predicament faced by ordinary citizens.

“If someone who spent his professional life in journalism and edited a relatively known newspaper can encounter such difficulties, one can only imagine what the truly marginalised must endure,” he wrote.

The post drew sharp political reactions, with opposition leaders linking his experience to the controversial SIR exercise carried out by the Election Commission in West Bengal ahead of the assembly elections.

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Tankha said the episode reflected “the level of irrationality” the country had reached.

“Are we determined to remove the tag of a nation governed by the rule of law so assiduously curated by our founding fathers! What a pity!!” he wrote on X.

TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose described Rajagopal’s account as “shocking” and “heart-rending”.

“If this can happen to R Rajagopal, former editor of The Telegraph, imagine what citizens with far fewer resources are enduring,” she said.

CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby alleged that the SIR exercise was being used to disenfranchise people and “determine citizenship in furtherance of the BJP’s divisive Hindutva agenda”.

“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,” Baby said.

The SIR in West Bengal has sparked political and legal controversy after lakhs of electors were either deleted from the rolls or placed under adjudication.

The Supreme Court declined to halt the exercise but directed the creation of appellate tribunals headed by retired high court judges to hear challenges against the deletion of names.

Rajagopal’s post comes amid continuing litigation and appeals arising out of the SIR process, with several petitioners contending that despite producing government-issued identity documents, their names were either deleted or kept under adjudication.