Passport Renewal Halted for Former Telegraph Editor Due to Missing Name from Electoral Rolls

Former editor of The Telegraph , R Rajagopal, finds himself in a “state of civic uncertainty”. His passport renewal has been put on hold after his name was found missing from Bengal’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) electoral rolls, along with nearly 27 lakh others. In an editorial for The Wire , Rajagopal said he was taken aback after his name was excluded from the voters’ list in the Ballygunge constituency in Kolkata in March this year. The election officers could neither trace his nor his father’s names in the 2002 voters’ list. The former editor was told ‘logical discrepancies’ as the reason. “My father, a Gandhian, retired professor and former State Secretary of the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi in Kerala, passed away in 2016. I remain unable to understand how a conscientious voter like him could have been absent from the rolls,” he said. Rajagopal has lived in Kolkata for over 30 years. The address serves as his permanent address in the documents. On February 27, he applied for his passport renewal to attend his daughter’s marriage in the United States . “Although I completed the biometric formalities on March 19, nearly a week later, my name was excluded from the voters’ list,” he said. On May 20, when he went to the passport office for the renewal process, he was handed a black chit that read – excluded in deleted list . “The chit was unsigned, and the official did not tell me his name. He said clearance could be given only after my name was restored to the voters’ list. When I said there was no certainty about when my appeal would be decided, he said I would have to wait and that there was no other option. I was puzzled because I could not find any public document that listed the voter identity card as a mandatory document for passport renewal,” Rajagopal said. On June 17, he was informed that the mandatory police verification for passport renewal was put on hold. “For all practical purposes, I find myself in a state of civic uncertainty. Much of my time is consumed in trying to reconstruct family records and secure documents dating back several decades. I fear that these matters will continue to demand my attention for the foreseeable future,” he said. You can read the full article here . 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. A few days ago, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) noted that a passport document cannot be construed as proof of Indian citizenship. It further stated that it is a travel document that attests nationality when an Indian is abroad. Rajagopal’s piece has evoked strong political reactions from the Opposition and civil society. Congress MP Vivek Thanka called the editor’s experience with SIR “irrational” and a “pity”. Trinamool Congress ( TMC ) Rajya Sabha member and senior journalist 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 in a post. CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby said that the SIR exercise was a BJP’s divisive Hindutva agenda tool. “After being struck off the electoral rolls, he is unable to renew his passport for the very reason of not being on the voters list! What sort of a cruel joke are those in power playing with the lives and rights of India’s citizens?” he said.